GUELPH — Who was Joseph G. Cope?
It is thought that Joseph Cope died during the Second World War. His named is inscribed on the Guelph cenotaph and his family remembered with the street name, Cope Court, in Guelph's north end.
Raffaella Cortese de Bosis, with the Wartime Friends Association from Rome, Italy, sent an inquiry trying to connect with the family of Wilfred Charles Cope and in the process, inspired the question of who was Joseph G. Cope?
Researchers looking to connect with his family have come up empty in their search for information.
Ed Butts, a writer focused on Canadian history, and in particular Guelph history, researched the name Joseph G. Cope as well as the other names on the local cenotaph but found no information on the man or name Cope.
“I’ve got the list here that I wrote down of those names, and beside that name, I have placed a question mark,” Butts said.
“Which, that question mark, I would have put there like a couple of years ago which tells me that I went looking for information on him and apparently didn’t find anything,” Butts said. “But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to be found."
There are several reasons to explain why it’s hard to find any information on someone killed at war.
“One, the name was spelled wrong. Two, the person did not serve in the Canadian military, he served with the British. I found that for several guys, that they for whatever reason instead of joining the army here, they went overseas and joined the Brits,” Butts said.
“In one or two examples, I found that the person named didn’t actually live in Guelph, might not have even ever set foot here but had family here and someone in that family made sure that the name went on the cenotaph,” Butts said.
Kyle Pugh, archivist assistant at the Wellington County Museum and Archives, found very little on Cope over several databases, leading him to think that there in fact was no Cope.
“So I took a look at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial as well as the Books of Remembrance for the Canadian war dead as well as Library and Archives Canada’s service records for World War Two war dead and there is no Joseph G. Cope,” Pugh said.
“If Joseph Cope wasn’t in one database but he was in others, you know, that can happen for a number of reasons. But if he’s not in all three and then I wasn’t able to find him in the 1921 census, which also isn’t conclusive,” Pugh said.
Although Pugh considered the possibility that Cope fought with the British but dismissed it because unlike the First World War, in the Second World War it was rare.
“Particularly during the First World War, and with the British, it was quite common that you could be a Canadian but if you were in the Air Force, you would be under the Royal Flying Corps,” Pugh said.
“So your records would be with the British military. But during World War II that wasn’t quite as common,” Pugh said.
Pugh then concluded there was no Joseph G. Cope, that it was a misspelling of the name Joseph G. Cote and people then believe that there was both a Joseph Cote as well as a Joseph Cope.
“So because I can’t find anything on Joseph G. Cope, with a P and I’ve consulted with a couple of my colleagues who do even more world war history research, it seems as though the Joseph G. Cote and the Joseph G. Cope are the same person,” Pugh said.
“But perhaps through mistranscription, the Cote’s last name was just misspelled somewhere and so it was taken to believe that there were two different people, where in fact there is just one,” Pugh said.
The Wartime Friends Association, based in Italy, celebrates the 100th birthday of soldiers buried in the Ravenna Commonwealth War Cemetery.
The association would read a letter provided by the family at the ceremony and send back some photos or a video to the family.
Raffaella reached out to local researchers to connect with Wilfred Cope’s family to recognise his 100th birthday. This raised questions about who Joseph Cope was.
There is some information on Cote.
Lance Corporal Joseph Gaughan Cote died on March 19, 1941 at 26 years old after an automobile collision.
He was born Jan. 2, 1914 in Guelph.
His parents were his father Frank Cote and mother Frances Cote. His wife was Norma Sullivan Cote and daughter Joanne.
He enlisted in Guelph to serve in an ambulance unit, and is buried at the Brookwood Military Cemetery in the U.K.
Butts reasoned that even if the name got on the cenotaph, there may never have been a Joseph Cope.
"It’s entirely possible that a nonexistent type name got on there because it seems that it was something of a haphazard exercise to begin with," Butts said.
Nonetheless, Butts struggle to find out who Joseph Cope was continues.
“I’ll have a look in the directories and see if there is anything there," he said.
Jesse Gault is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
