Edward Ronald Sewell

When a soldier trained for war dies not in combat but by accident, the irony of such a death seems somehow to add to the tragedy. Ordinary Seaman Edward Sewell served in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve aboard HMCS Stadacona. With the U-boats constantly patrolling out beyond the mouth of Halifax harbour and the cold and often angry North Atlantic to contend with, a sailor was in considerable danger every time he put to sea. Edward Sewell of Moncton, just 19 years old, knew the risks and enlisted to do his part anyway.

But when Sewell drowned June 23, 1944, he was not aboard a ship at sea but in a rowboat that capsized in Dartmouth’s Albro Lake. His body was recovered from the lake and borne home to Moncton for his funeral at Tuttle Brothers Funeral Home and his burial in Elmwood Cemetery. Sewell was a graduate of Moncton High School, the son of Mr. And Mrs. E.B. Sewell of Enterprise Street.