Watch the video

Before the war, families would spend time working on the farm or eating dinner together. Starting in spring 1916, family time for the Green family was spent waging the war.

Arthur Green was the first to volunteer at age nineteen in Leslie, Saskatchewan. Next, his father Moses Green, forty-four, his brother-in-law Percy Edwin Biggs, and his cousin Harold Farrar volunteered and together, they trained at Camp Hughes in Manitoba.

Moses left his wife behind in Saskatchewan with their five other children while he and his other family members served in the 214th (Saskatchewan) Battalion.

Arthur left behind a promising life as a scholar. Prior to moving to Saskatchewan in 1911 to begin a farm, the Green family lived in Briercliffe, England, where Arthur received a medal as “best boy” from Briercliffe Council School. “He will be remembered by residents as a youth of promise,” reads a notice of his death from an undated newspaper clipping.

The now twenty-year-old private was killed the morning of August 15th, 1917 during the Battle of Hill 70 in France.

Arthur and Moses each received two medals for their contribution to the war effort—one for fighting overseas, and the other for enlisting on a voluntary basis.

After the war, Moses returned to Canada to farm until one of his son’s took over the property.

“After that, he just enjoyed his garden,” said Brian Green, his grandson. He spent his winters in Vancouver, where the rest of his family lived.

Moses passed away on one such winter visit at the age of seventy-five. Although his death was separated from that of Arthur by time and circumstance, there was a common thread: both men died among family.

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.