395 Lakeshore Road E - The Percy Demold & Ethel Keogh McGee Demold House

Percy Detmold purchased 395 Lakeshore Road East from Arthur Gibson in 1919

Percy George Detmold was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1869. He spent his formative years there before becoming a Private with the Queensland Imperial Bushmen during the Boer War (1899-1902). He returned to Australia after the war for a few years before emigrating to Canada in 1908, finding work as a clerk. That same year he married Ethel Keogh McGee at St. Basil's in Toronto. She was a widow with 3 children, also from Australia. They settled in Toronto and lived at various addresses. In 1909 their son, also Percy, was born. While in Toronto, a popular pastime for Percy was the rapidly growing sport of Lawn Bowling.

In 1919, the now retired Percy and family bought the house at 395 Lakeshore Road East in Oakville from Arthur Gibson, a local contractor. They continued to live in the house until selling in 1925 and setting sail for England, first staying at the Bank of Nova Scotia Building in London (which may provide a clue to his previous employer), before finally settling in Uckfield, West Sussex.

Percy died there in 1935 at the age of 66. Percy junior joined the Royal Air Force as an air gunner with a Stirling bomber crew and was shot down during a raid on 26 April 1942. He is buried at the Rheinberg War Cemetery in Germany.

Ethel travelled back to Canada on several occasions, presumably to see her daughter Ellis who lived on Watson Ave with her husband Robert Armstrong, the last time being in 1945. She died in 1947 in West Sussex.