Biographies

The Kern family, which included Eugène, Lucien and Aimé, as well as their sister, Marguerite, and their widowed mother, Constantine, née Cuny, were originally from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, where the siblings were born between 1882 and 1891. Attracted by immigration propaganda which spoke of available farmland in Western Canada, the eldest son, Eugène, crossed the ocean in 1905 and ended up in St. Léon, Manitoba, where he worked on a farm. He was so impressed with his experience that he returned to France and came back with his family to settle permanently in St. Léon. When the war broke out in 1914, the three brothers responded to the call to arms and set out to defend their native France. Eugène was killed in action in 1915. Aimé, who was seriously wounded in 1917, did not return to the Front, and eventually married a French woman. Lucien was given permission to return to Canada in 1917, and died as a result of contracting the Spanish Flu. All three brothers were prolific writers and their war experience was documented through their abundant correspondence as well as articles published in La Liberté. Based on information from La Société historique de Saint-Boniface.

Mentioned in:

correspondence

1. Lettre de décembre 1914 d'Eugène Kern à Mme Constantine Kern
2. "Lettre du Front" par Eugène Kern, dans La Liberté, 2 mars 1915
3. Lettre du 6 mai 1915 d'Eugène Kern à Mme Veuve Eugène Kern
4. Lettre du 5 août 1915 de La Mission Catholique Suisse en Faveur des prisonniers de Guerre à Mme Constance Kern
5. Lettre du 20 août 1915 de C. Bertrand à Constance Kern
6. Carte postale du 20 octobre 1917 du Lieutenant M. Auvert à Lucien Kern
7. Lettre du 15 mars 1923 du Consulat Général de la République française au Canada à Mme Veuve Eugène Kern