When war erupted in Europe, Alfred James Cook was determined to sign up and fight—even if, at almost forty-two, he was old enough to be the father of most of his fellow recruits.

“He wasn’t elderly, but he certainly wasn’t young went he went off to the First War,” said Cook’s grandson, Don McGowan. “He was like all men of his generation. He wanted to serve ‘king and country.’ It was an obligation, I don’t think there was any discussion at all of him not going.”

Cook enlisted from Toronto on November 25, 1915, with the 123rd Battalion (Royal Grenadiers) as a quartermaster and sergeant. Cook survived the war, but not unscathed. Gassed while fighting somewhere in France, he had terrible scars on his leg and face.

“His leg was permanently scarred and purple,” McGowan recalled. “He had a large scar on his nose, and one night, he woke up in the middle of the night and a large rat was chewing on it.”

A professional glove cutter prior to the war, he worked at Wood Gundy after the Armistice as a uniformed securities courier. Despite the war’s horrors, Cook remained a jolly man with “a great sense of humour,” said McGowan. “He was a great kidder, right into his ninetieth year.”

Cook died in 1965, but he lived long enough to watch his daughter Myrtle become one of Canada’s most celebrated athletes and sports journalists. Myrtle (Don McGowan’s mother) competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics as a member of the “Matchless Six”— a group of athletes who were the first Canadian women to compete at the Olympics. A gold medalist and world-record-holder in the sprint competition, Myrtle Cook later wrote for the Montreal Star for 50 years, and is a member of the Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.

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.