Robert Munro

Becoming a soldier meant at least he would be cared for and there was the promise of sending money home.


Robert was one of ten children of homesteader John Alexander Munro in Busby, Alberta. They were eking out a very primitive, desperate existence at the outbreak of WW1 and although Robert could hardly be spared from the farm, it was a relief to have one less mouth to feed. As well, becoming a soldier meant at least he would be cared for and there was the promise of sending money home. The sad result was devastating to the family at home, made all the more so when they lost two younger daughters to the 'flu epidemic of the same year. The surviving seven children went on to become solid farmer/citizens, all producing large families of their own, now scattered across the Canadian West, every one a productive citizen.

Robert Munro of Busby, Alberta, was drafted in January 1918. In September of that year, he was killed by a burst of machine-gun fire. His death added to his family’s pain and loss; two of Munro’s sisters had died earlier in the year after contracting the Spanish flu.

Do you have an ancestor who served in the Great War? Submit their story and it could be included on this Great War Album website.