Salesman, editor and publisher.
Born on a farm near Melita on 10 August 1896, son of James Arthur Ketcheson (1855-1933) and Annie Elizabeth Savage (1866-1959), he was descended from United Empire Loyalist stock. His ancestors came to Canada after the American Revolution and settled on the Bay of Quinty near Belleville, Ontario. His father came west in 1882 and homesteaded near Melita where he was a member of the town council for two years and one of the early promoters of the Methodist Church. He was educated at the Melita Public and High Schools then worked in the hardware businesses of Campbell & Ferguson and Gibson & Scott in Melita. In the Spring of 1918, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was at the Depot Battalion in Brandon until the armistice. After his military discharge, he married Letitia Cunningham Beveridge (1893-1990), daughter of Reverend Thomas Beveridge of Camrose, Alberta. He worked as a hardware salesman at Estevan, Saskatchewan with W. R. Whitby and at Regina with Wood, Vallance Limited. He returned to Melita and took over the plant of the Melita New Era newspaper from his father-in-law, purchasing it in 1923 and operating it until his death. He was a member of the Western Town Weeklies Association, Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association, Melita Town Council, Melita Board of Trade, and Presbyterian church. He died in early 1969 and was buried in the Melita Cemetery.
Birth registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Attestation papers, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Library and Archives Canada.
Pioneers and Prominent People of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Canadian Publicity Company, 1925.
“Melita paper changes hands for first time in its history,” Brandon Sun, 25 August 1969, page 10.
Obituary [Letitia Cunningham Ketcheson], Winnipeg Free Press, 21 June 1990, page 47.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 22 December 2017
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