RFC flyer in training flies home ‘by mistake’
Flash from the Past hadn’t intended a return to New Dundee so soon after spotlighting Herman Kavelman’s photographs on Aug. 25, 2018. However, history has a funny way of detouring visitors.
Today’s subject began his life in New Dundee. That’s where Owen Thamer’s parents, Rev. Ezra H. and Lucinda (Fried) Thamer put down roots, raising three daughters and four sons above the family’s general store. Originally owned by James Wing, the shop at 190 Main St. was purchased by Ezra outright in 1904 and he then installed New Dundee’s first Bell Telephone exchange. As a sideline, Ezra operated a small creamery in the cellar. Proving an unsuccessful butter maker, he sold the idle equipment and donated the basement space for a year to a group of shareholders calling itself the New Dundee Co-Operative Creamery Limited. That was the 1908 foundation of what became New Dundee’s largest industry. Soon, a large factory was erected, and by the 1930s, it was Ontario’s largest butter producer. In 1998, the creamery closed, ending nine decades of employment for generations of New Dundee-ites.
But, back to the Thamers. Selling the store in 1911, Ezra, Lucinda and several of the children moved to 20 Alma St. in Berlin (Charles Street East in 2018, site of the Crowne Plaza parking garage). Less than a block away, Ezra and second son Franklin opened E.H. Thamer & Son men’s furnishings shop at 96 King East at Scott (2018’s Waterloo Region Record office site). Third son Owen had been born in 1896, and when the opening salvoes of the First World War were fired, he was 18 and a half. The Thamer brothers, like most Canadian men in their teens/early 20s, inexorably became part of the First World War.
Franklin joined the 34th Overseas Battalion in Guelph and was in France by October 1915, among the earliest Berlin men to reach the battlefield. A letter Franklin sent from hospital in April 1917 said he was suffering from “shell-shock and concussion of the ears.”
However, Sapper F.F. Thamer returned to active service, escaped further serious injury and was part of the Canadian Army of Occupation in Germany following the November 1918 Armistice. He sent several souvenirs back home and Ezra proudly displayed helmets, badges and photos in the family’s store window. Franklin returned to Kitchener in mid June 1919. For a couple of years, he remained with his father’s business but then left town.
Owen, the younger brother, didn’t enlist immediately but had flying in his blood and signed with the Royal Flying Corps. Following aviation courses at the University of Toronto, he was assigned to Aviation School at Camp Borden. Early on May 10, 1917, a curious incident in Kitchener attracted hundreds of spectators as well as front-page coverage in both local daily newspapers.
Flight Cadet Owen Thamer took off alone in his JN-4 Canuck two-seat training aircraft, ostensibly heading for Owen Sound. Claiming to have become lost in the clouds, he travelled via Georgetown, Hamilton, Brantford, Galt and, surprise, 115 miles later, ended up in his hometown of Kitchener. At 7:15 a.m., earlyrising people in the east ward were surprised to hear a lowflying airplane circle and land on Alderman Sam Brubacher’s farm field, near today’s Weber/ Pandora intersection.
Coincidentally (or not), in the previous day’s Kitchener Daily Telegraph, Ezra said a landing place had been picked out should his son fly in for a visit!
A phone call to Camp Borden resulted in an order for Owen to stay grounded until his instructor, Flight-Lieutenant Watson (or was it Wilson? each newspaper had a different name) could fly to Kitchener and escort him back. Alas, Wilson/Watson’s plane cracked up on landing but, luckily, neither he nor his accompanying mechanic was injured. Since Thamer’s airplane was not damaged, Watson/Wilson flew it back next morning to Camp Borden. Thamer caught a train back to base after a day in his hometown.
Did this recklessness end Owen Thamer’s career in the Royal Flying Corps?
In a word, no, and on Nov. 3, as we approach Remembrance Day, Flash from the Past will detail his rather unique wartime experiences.