171493 Pte. Roy Kallar was born on June 18th, 1892, in Tillsonburg, Ontario, and was a broom-maker by trade in St. Thomas and then Toronto, Ontario.
Attesting on August 9th, 1915, into the 83rd (Queen's Own Rifles) Battalion, Roy, #171493, lived in Jones Avenue in Toronto at the time, with his new bride, Irene (nee Gillespie).
After training at Niagara on the Lake Camp (among others), he sailed overseas on the converted White Star troop ship, RMS Olympic overseas with the 83rd Battalion, which became absorbed as reserves into the 4th CMR on June 7th, 1916.
Troop movements indicate he trained with the consolidated regiment as it regrouped after the 4th CMR's huge losses on June 2nd's "Battle for Mount Sorrel"; the new contingents and remaining 4th CMR men were addressed by General Byng himself during training on June 22nd.
Billeting at Steenvorde, Belgium, Roy would write to his wife "Reenie" back in Toronto, whom he discovered from afar, was pregnant. He crammed onto a small postcard with a rooster on the front, "Keep the Home Fires Burning. Till I Come Back to You. From Your Ever Loving Husband Roy Kallar".
After harrying summer months of skirmishes and work teams serving all over the Front with the 4th CMR, Roy passed through Albert with the troops by bus on September 11th, 1916, en-route to heavy front line fighting in Flers-Courcelette and the violent shelling and counter-attacks around Moquet Farm of September 15th and 16th.
Family oral history states Roy was killed by a German shell in that theatre. He is buried in Courcelette Cemetery, with a listed death of September 16th, 1916; an indication that he was found and identified. Roy's own Central Ontario group lost some 18 men that same day.
Credit and many thanks go to Matt Parker for the above biography and image.