PRIVATE GEORGE LAWRENCE HOLMDEN
5TH BATTALION CANADIAN INFANTRY
19TH AUGUST 1915 AGE 20
BURIED: BERKS CEMETERY EXTENSION, BELGIUM
George Holmden's father used his son's own words for his epitaph. Twenty-year-old George, a piano stringer from Grenfell, Quebec, volunteered on 16 September 1914. Both his parents had been born in Britain, emigrating to Canada in September 1877. Many of the earliest Canadian volunteers were young men who had been born in Britain; George Holmden, who was also an early volunteer, was born in Montreal.