Last Thursday we ran an old photograph in this space that was headlined “Unknown soldier.” It was found by staff at Woodlawn Memorial Park who wanted to return it to the man’s family if perchance he was identified.
It didn’t take long for his ancestors to emerge and tell his story.
The man’s granddaughter, who lives in Fergus, was surprised to open the Jan. 12 Trib and see the familiar photo staring back at her from Page 6.
“Holy cow! There’s Grandpa’s picture,” recalls Patrica Holmes.
“I have the same picture in my dining room,” she said, adding that she also has a similar photo of his wife and they are displayed together in antique frames.
The young man’s name is Ronald Young. According to Holmes, he lied about his age and joined the army at the age of 14. She believes the photograph was taken when he was between 14 and 18. He then went off to Africa to fight in the Boer War of 1899 to 1902.
Holmes doesn’t know what he did for a living upon returning from Guelph. She does know he died young. He was struck by a streetcar while riding his bicycle. He was 42 years old.
She is not sure how the old photo ended up at Woodlawn, but he is buried there, she said.
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One of my new year’s resolutions, er intentions, is to rid my computer of all spam and email that is of no use to me. A lofty ideal that is proving to be nigh impossible.
Some of the stuff I get allows me to unsubscribe, and I never hear from these senders again. Others allow me to unsubscribe, but I still receive their stuff anyway. Yet others do not give me the option of unsubscribing, so I am routinely subjected to a wild array of stuff I don’t want clogging my inbox. Things such as “Four Latin American Presidents Warmly Greet Iran’s Ahmadinejad” or “BASF receives registration for ARMEZON™ in Eastern Canada.” Do I care? Do you care? Didn’t think so.
Nevertheless, public relations companies are making oodles of money by ineffectively carpet- bombing every computer address they can get their mitts on. So voluminous and verbose are some of these emails, I end up trashing them even though they may have good local stuff buried in them.
There’s no doubt it’s a Quixotic quest, but if I can winnow the number of daily emails by two-thirds that would be a victory.

ccclark@guelphtribune.ca