Individual Details

John David Galloway

( - )

Copy of Birth Registration #013175 (8) dated May 4, 1896 was received by email from Gail Leach-Wunker, January 14, 2004

Toronto Daily Star, Wed., July 17, 1946
'TERRIBLE WEAKNESS' NOTE ONLY CLUE AS TRAPPER DIES.
"Special to The Star:
Kenora, July 17 -- "If I can only get rid of this terrible weakness I think I can survive ...."

Those words written on a weather calendar by John D. Galloway are the only clues held by provincial police of Kenora to explain the death of the 50-year-old lone trapper in his cabin in the Red Lake district, 100 miles north of here.
The entry was written on April 21, 1945, more than a year before his remains were found in his cabin by Cpl. Frank Richardson, of the Ontario provincial police, who flew into the district and cut his way through 40 miles of bush to reach the tiny cabin.
Inspector Harry Storey, of the provincial police in Kenora, reconstructing the death, said Galloway made only that Last passing reference to illness. After that entry the book was blank.
Sometime in July Indians reported they came to the cabin to "pay a visit" to the long trapper who had spent most of his life in the district. Getting no answer to their knows, they peered into the window and saw Galloway stretched out in his bunk apparently dead.
Without investigating further they fled back into the bush and in October the report reached the provincial police in Kenora.
By then the fall freeze-Up had clamped down on the district and made entry by air or foot impossible. In June this year a float plane was chartered and Cpl. Frank Richardson, of the provincial police in Kenora, was flown in to Berens river, 40 miles from the cabin.
At the river he was met by one of the Indians who first reported the death and was guided through the 40 miles of dense bush. At the cabin they buried the skeletal remains found on the bunk and fathered the few personal papers and the weather calendar kept faithfully up to the last entry.
No signs of violence were found on the remains.
In Waverley, Ont. 15 miles south of Midland, Mrs. Abe Truax a sister of Galloway, said he had been trapping in the district for the past 20 years and had told her he was 'coming out for good" after this trip.
The trapper's mother, Mrs. Flora Galloway, 79 who lives with Mrs. Truax, has not yet been told of the tragedy. Three other sisters survive including, Mrs. Alice Clucas, of Wright Ave. Toronto; Mrs. Doris Belanger, Barrie, and a third sister in Rouyn, Que."

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