1914-10-21tt

Although official news from the front in Western Europe was heavily censored, sometimes Hamiltonians would learn a little firsthand news about the war by means of letters, letters which would be printed in the local press.

Such was the case when Miss Athawes, 22 Augusta street, shared with the Hamilton Herald, a letter she had received from a friend who lived at Headcorn, Kent, England.

A portion of the letter made reference to Leo Grossman, a young man, son of a prominent Hamilton musical family, his father being a long-term member of the Thirteenth Battalion band and well-known owner of a musical store on King street.

Leo Grossman had left Hamilton a few years previously to live in British Columbia. He just happened to be in England when war broke out in August, 1914.

In her letter to Miss Athawes, her friend recounts the following:

“The Germans are near enough to us now. We quite expect bombs in London, and the worst of it is we are on the high road there.

“Leo Grossman was here when the war broke out, and he at once joined the Buffs, East Kent regiment, so you see there was a Canadian soon in it. He was a trained man, and they snapped him up.

“It makes us rather anxious, especially as he joined from here, but his mother seems very plucky over it. God grant he may come back safe.

“I know some of the German cruelties are true as I have seen a little boy of about three or four years of age with his hands cut off so that he would never grow up to be a soldier.

“Canterbury is quite a military town, being the depot of the Buffs. Nearly everyone has soldiers billeted on them. We lost several men at Mons from here.”¹

¹ “With the Buffs : Hamilton Boy One of the First Canucks to Reach Firing Line”

Hamilton Herald.   October 21, 1914