11 November 2017: John K McLean

It was my privilege to be invited by Major James MacInnes, Deputy Commanding Officer, The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, to a wreath laying at the tomb of Private John Kenneth McLean in Beechwood Cemetery.
McLean, who died in Ottawa, is commemorated by a new Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone. I played a part in identifying he had not been commemorated, although his friend who died in the same incident was.
Born in 1897, his father John William died in 1900, and his mother Alice Ellen in 1904 after she had remarried. He came to Canada in 1913, not in a home child party, giving his occupation as clerk/stenographer.
His sister Constance Beatrice McLean came to Canada  in 1907 as a Barnardo home child. She married Clayton W. Gofton in 1918 in Waterloo where she died in 1922. It is not yet confirmed but she may have living Canadian descendants who would be the nearest relative of John K. McLean.