FOWLER, Florence May
Age at Death: 26
Rank Sergeant
Unit Canadian Women’s Army Corps
Service Number W2109
Place of Burial Spring Creek Cemetery, Clarkson Ontario
Date of Birth 1916.11.20
Place of Birth North Bay ON
Enlistment November 10, 1941, Toronto ON
Date of Death 1943.03.28
Daughter of Esau and Alice Fowler, of Port Credit
Florence was born in North Bay and grew up in Port, Credit, Ontario. She had a Grade 8 education and worked mainly in domestic service prior to her enlistment in November 1941. She taught herself typing while working as a waitress in the officers’ mess in Newmarket, Ontario, then was promoted to Corporal and took on the role of Clerk Typist while taking the Officer Training Course in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. She found the course difficult and asked to repeat it even though she was passing; her instructor lated noted that she “suffered from a sense of inferiority in the presence of other cadets or superior education. I attribute this in part to her having been employed for 12 years as a domestic servant.”
On the morning of March 28, 1943, Florence’s body was found on the train tracks in Baie d’Urfé, near Montreal. Her head and right arm had been severed from her body, likely by a train. She had got a haircut that day and the hairdresser reported giving her $4.60 in change, but this money was not found on her person. Witnesses also reported seeing her in the area with a male companion, possibly a soldier named Herbert Norwood who was reported to have later been seen acting nervously. For these reasons, a Department of National Defence report concluded: “The Court is of the opinion that the death possibly was brought about by foul play by some person or persons unknown could not be excluded, and that further investigation by civil authorities is in order.” However, provincial police failed to discover any more evidence, and the coroner’s inquest declared her death accidental.