GRACE UNITED CHURCH
Harold Morrison Bettenson
Name: Harold Morrison Bettenson
Born: March 23, 1923 in Drayton, Ontario
Died: June 24, 1945
Family:
Son of Orwell W. Bettenson and Janet Irene of Brampton, Ontario
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Service Number: B/130769
Age: 22
Force: The Canadian Provost Corps, 2 Provosts Coy.
Rank: Corporal
Cemetery: Holten Canadian War Cemetery, Zwartewaterland, Overijssel, Netherlands
Grave Reference: XII A. 12.
Harold Morrison Bettenson was born on March 24, 1924 in Drayton, Ontario to Orwell W. Bettenson (1890 – 1947) and Jeanette Irene Plant (1895 – 1946) of Brampton. He has two sisters, Mrs. C. Allan in Brampton and Mrs. Gordon Miller of Lorton, Virginia.
Harold is also remembered on the gravestone for his parents in the St. Martin’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Drayton, Ontario.
His parents later moved to Fergus, where he attended school for 14 years. In 1940, the family moved to Brampton. Harold was employed in the machine shop at VAL Malton. He enlisted in the Lorne Scot on August 4, 1942. He trained at Cornwall, St Thomas, and Camp Borden, and went overseas with the Queen’s Own Rifles, arriving in England on April 8, 1943, and was then transferred to the Provost Corps. He served in Belgium, France, Holland and Germany.
His Ontario Registration of death says his permanent address at the time of his death was 144 Queen Street West, Brampton, Ontario. He died from a fracture of the base of his skull when the truck in which he was driving hit a tree in Germany on June 24, 1945 while on service.
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His Headstone has the lines Tranquil you lie, Your knightly virtue proved, carved under a cross. He was reburied on March 12, 1946 at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery in Plot 12, Row A, Grave No. 12. He originally was buried at the Aurich Canadian Temp Burial Grounds.
This slideshow includes all documents related to the death and burial of Harold.
