The volunteer of the week is William "Bill" Beeching. A Communist and accountant from Regina, Beeching served with the Lincolns in Spain and later wrote "Canadian Volunteers: Spain, 1936-1939," published in 1989.
The volunteer of the week is Isaac Matson. Known also as "Jim," Matson was born in Sweden on February 2, 1898, and immigrated to Canada in October 1926. He worked as a logger and a miner in British Columbia and joined the Communist Party in 1932.
The volunteer of the week is George Thomas, an English-Canadian volunteer and university student. Thomas was born in the UK on February 25th, 1915 and immigrated to Saskatchewan in 1920 with his mother Ethel. Thomas's International Brigades file lists his later residences as Regina, Saskatoon, and Drumheller, Alberta. He sailed for Spain on October 16, 1937 and arrived on the 30th of the same month.
The volunteer of the week is Elias Aviezora! Born April 15, 1894 to a Jewish-Belarusian family, Aviezon immigrated to Canada in 1913. He served in the First World War as an ambulance driver with the Canadian Army Medical Service. Aviezora's Canadian Expeditionary Force records say that he came to Canadian from "Mosesville, Argentina"—presumably Moisés Ville, Argentina, a town of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who left the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to avoid anti-Semitic persecution and violence.
The volunteer of the week is Harold John "Dirty Duke" Levens, a roofer, mechanic, and soldier born in Toronto in 1911! Levens listed his hometowns as Toronto and Vancouver, and lived for a time in the US, where he served 3 years in the US Army Medical Corps. Arriving in Spain in August 1937, he served with a medical unit attached to the British Battalion. Levens was killed in action on his 27th birthday, February 14th, 1938, at Atalaya.
Toivo Ryynanen was a Finnish Canadian from northern Ontario. Before going to Spain, he worked as a chauffer, lumberjack, and miner, and was involved with the Communist Party of Canada, the Young Communist League, and the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers.
Nicholas Myroniuk was a Ukrainian Canadian blacksmith and mechanic. He lived in Vancouver and Alberta, and was involved with the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League from 1936 onward.
James Brown was born in Nixon, New Brunswick in 1899. He worked as a farmer and labourer across the country, living in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Toronto. He was active in the Communist Party of Canada from 1936 onward, and participated in the On-to-Ottawa Trek.
The volunteer of the week is Samuel "Squeeky" Brown! Brown was an Irish-Canadian machinist with experience in the Winnipeg Rifles and the US Coast Guard. Born in Belfast, he lived in Winnipeg and Vancouver in Canada. Listing his political affiliation as "anti-fascist," Brown was active with the Single Man's Unemployed Association in Canada.
Albert Harold "Harry" Rushton was born in Manchester in 1891, and immigrated to Canada in 1912. He worked as a travelling salesman and briefly as a vaudeville producer in Chicago from 1917-1918. He served as a Staff Sergeant with the Canadian Army during the First World War. He lived in Hamilton and Toronto, where he was active in the Communist Party of Canada from 1930 onward, and with the Ontario Federation of the Unemployed.
