Orline "Red" Clements

1898 - Yes, date unknown

• Name	Orline "Red" Clements
  Military	1814	WW1   [1]
  	WW1, Sevice #507559
  Born	26 Sep 1898	, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1, 2]
  Gender	Male
  Military	1914	WW1   [3]
  	WW1, Private
  Residence	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3]
  Residence	5 Dumfries St., Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Residence	1922	78 Pollock Ave., Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-66173
  Died	Yes, date unknown
  Person ID	I66173	Generations
  Last Modified	9 Jun 2025

  
  

  Father	Sylvester Clemens,   b. 8 Feb 1875, , Ontario, Canada ,   d. 12 Sep 1930  (Age 55 years)
  Mother	Annie M. Stephan,   b. 25 Mar 1877, , Ontario, Canada ,   d. 12 Jul 1968  (Age 91 years)
  Family ID	F17277	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Alice Buchanan,   b. May 1900, Glenmorris, Brant Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Married	12 Oct 1922	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Last Modified	10 Jun 2025
  Family ID	F301686	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Father's photos from battlefields a treasure trove While serving with 13th Signal Corps, Red Clements got in early on the camera craze. He's left behind boxes full of albums of dramatic pictures. By Joseph Hall Special to the Star The pictures paint the only words Gerry Clements will ever know of his father's First World War service. Like many soldiers returned from that infernal conflict, Orline "Red" Clements would not speak of it with his family. "He had four sons, and I was the youngest, and he never would mention too much about it," Gerry says "The only one he'd really talk to was another veteran." An early entrant into the emerging, mass-market camera craze, the senior Clements took and collected dozens of pictures of his Great War experiences with the Royal Canadian Signal Corps. He arranged them in an album that is now a cherished family heirloom in his son's Sarnia household. "We kind of value this, it's a real treasure," Gerry Clements says. His favourite shot is one that shows his father's entire 13th Signal Corps brigade, whose members used messenger dogs and pigeons, flags, lamps, telegraphs and later telephones to communicate orders up and down the front lines. "The whole group was in it and that means a lot to us because they where his comrades, eh." Red Clements, who became a newspaper printer after the war, died in 1975 at the age of 77. And though his son recalls him as a calm, kind and steady man, the war did leave internal scars. "He was a scout leader and he was kind of a naturalist . . . and a good father and good family man," says Clements, now 80. "But my mother told me that whenever there was an electrical storm or thunder, he'd be pacing the floor." The wartime album is one of many his father filled over a lifetime of amateur photography. "I have so many pictures here, two big boxfuls of albums," Clements says. "Even before he went off to war, he had a camera and was taking pictures of the early times up where he lived around Chesley and Galt and Waterloo." And he passed his love of photography off to his sons, who would all go into related careers. "The whole family was involved in photography, we had our own darkroom and printers and we all \emdash all the sons \emdash worked in photo finishing plants," says Clements, who moved on to a career as a newspaper compositor at the Sarnia Observer. Clements has used his photography skills to help preserve his father's Great War chronicle. "The original album is starting to disintegrate and I photographed the pictures and put them in a new album," he says. Clements does not know where his father served during his four-year deployment, except that he fought at the Second Battle of the Somme in 1918. "I went through some of his old stuff here and there is a map in there, but I can't make too much heads or tails of it," he says. "It looks like there might have been a bit of blood dropped on it." Joseph Hall Joe Hall is a former reporter and feature writer for the Star who now contributes as a freelance writer. Joseph Hall Special to the Star (2014) Father's photos from battlefields a treasure trove, Toronto Star. Available at: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/ww1/fathers-photos-from-battlefields-a-treasure-trove/article_0cde3833-1639-5bf5-9f35-61398743864b.html (Accessed: 14 May 2025).

  
  

• Sources

  [S157] Military - Canada - World War I - Attestation papers. [S259] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1901, Galt (Town/Ville) C-10 Page 7. [S1890] Military - ON, Waterloo, Kitchener - Kitchener Public Library WW1 Soldiers Card Index Soldier Information Cards - World War One.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 26 Sep 1898 - , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Married - 12 Oct 1922 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth