This essay is about the single First World War casualty commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Wyoming.
Fred Lewis was a British immigrant who settled with his mother and two of his sisters in Wyoming. His father was a regular soldier in the Corps of Royal Engineers and Fred was born in Alexandria, Egypt, where his father was serving, on 3 August 1894. He was the fifth of six children, and the eldest of two sons. His father was a quartermaster sergeant when died at the Station Hospital in Gosport, Hampshire in 1896. After his death the children were sent in different directions, with the youngest four attending St David’s orphanage in Mumbles, Glamorganshire. Fred’s movements over the next decade are not known.
His elder sister, Alice, emigrated to the United States in 1907, destined for Big Horn, Wyoming, where she married. His mother followed in 1910; she remarried in 1916. Fred Lewis arrived in Canada on 23 December 1911 and also travelled to Sheridan County, where he became a ranch hand. His sister, Ethel, joined them in October 1912. Continue reading