LEST WE FORGET 215 LAVELL, John Thomas WWI John was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England to Albert Alexander and Martha (Williamson) Lavell on March 7, 1891. He was the fourth oldest of eleven children and only boy. He immigrated to Canada in 1913. He lived with his oldest sister, Elizabeth, and her husband, Frank Orbell, and helped on their farm in the Oak Knoll district (near Rocanville). He enlisted on December 28, 1914 in Moosomin with the 10th CMR. He was promoted to Lance Corporal on May 30, 1916. He was sent to France with the 27th Battalion, Canadian Infantry on September 28, 1916. He was awarded a Good Conduct Badge on May 8, 1917. John married Annie Walton (his childhood sweetheart) in England on September 21, 1917. On October 7, 1918, he received a gunshot wound to the left shoulder, head, and thigh and he spent time in hospital and convalescent hospitals. He was discharged in London on March 27, 1919. It would seem that John and his wife remained in England after his discharge. The 1939 registry shows him working as a general labourer. He died in September 1958 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England. Because his sister and her husband had lived and were buried in the Rocanville area, John was included on the Rocanville list of WWI. LEE-GRAYSON, Joseph Henry “Joe” South African War &WWI Joe was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, England on December 10, 1875 (war records shows 1878), to Benjamin Grayson and Ann Lee. He went to school in India and attended military college. He served with the Royal Horse Guards in England and then in the Indian cavalry. While serving in the South African War, he received a shrapnel wound to his right thigh. After the war, Joe studied art in London, Paris and Belgium. Joe was a tall distinguished looking man (6’2”) with a Burmese tattoo (of an artist’s palette) on his left forearm. He came to Canada in 1906 and spent two years in Montreal before coming out west to farm in the Rocanville area (SE 1-18-32, north side of the Qu’Appelle Valley). He married Kathleen Mercy McNeill (from England) in 1910. The couple owned a house in Rocanville from 1911 to 1926. Joe served in World War I as a Warrant Officer from August 12, 1914 to February 25, 1916 in Canada (Camp Sewell) and in England from March 1916 to March 1918. He sustained a permanent eye injury in November 1916 and due to his poor eyesight, he served in a clerical capacity until his discharge on June 30,1920. Joe and Kay were very talented and added to the arts in Rocanville as Kay taught music and oil painting. In 1923, Joe joined the Saskatchewan Civil Service as Provincial Artist and he retained that position for twenty years. He designed the official coat of arms for the city of Regina and he also designed the decorative elements of Regina’s Albert Memorial Bridge built in 1930. Joe was an expert in “Heraldry” and many of the scrolled documents in the Saskatchewan Legislative building are his work as well as the painting of King George V.When they left Regina, Joe and Kay retired to Summerland, BC. Sgt. Major Lee Grayson died on December 15, 1953 and is buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Penticton, BC. After his death, Kay returned to Dover, Kent, England where she died in 1956.
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