Farmer, municipal official.
Born in the Pathhead district on 8 December 1920, son of James Sims (1880-1944) and Charlotte Cooper (1882-1967), he was educated at Pathhead School and Macgregor School. In 1939, at the outset of the Second World War, he enlisted with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders. Three years later, he was taken a prisoner of war at Dieppe, France and spent the next three years in a prisoner of war camp. After his return to Canada, he was a member of the Winnipeg Police Force for a time. He then moved to Toronto, Ontario where he married Elsie May Poyser (1924-2017), originally of Emmeline.
In 1950, the couple returned to Manitoba to operate the Poyser farm at Emmeline, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 1988. He was an active member of the Macgregor Masonic Lodge, served for 29 years as Chairman of the local health services committee, and was active in the establishment of a personal care home at Macgregor. He served as Reeve of the Rural Municipality of North Norfolk (1962-1965), and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Manitoba Agricultural Museum (1965-1966, 1975-1977).
A long-time member of the Progressive Conservative Party, he was Director and President of the Lakeside Constituency, Director of the Marquette Constituency, and President of the Portage Marquette Constitutency. A candidate for Lakeside in the 1966 provincial general election, he was defeated by Douglas Campbell. In recognition of his community service, he received a Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal (1977) and was named Macgregor Citizen of the Year (1981).
He died at Winnipeg on 12 October 1990 and was buried in the Macgregor Cemetery.
Marriage registration [James Sims, Charlotte Cooper], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Birth registration [William Frank Sims], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 17 October 1990, page 40.
Through Fields and Dreams: A History of the R.M. of North Norfolk and MacGregor by The History Book Committee, North Norfolk-MacGregor Archives, 1998, page 494.
Obituary [Elsie May Sims], Winnipeg Free Press, 7 November 2017.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 16 December 2023
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