55292 Rifleman John Roderick “Rod” Montgomery Schoales was born in Toronto on 19 October 1895, the son of John Thomas Schoales and Victoria Elizabeth Kerr.

Schoales was educated at Wilton Avenue and Bolton Avenue Schools and then attended Jarvis Collegiate and a Technical School. He was 6′ 1/2″ tall and played baseball, lacrosse, football and basketball.

In early 1914 he joined The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada as a member of E Company.

Schoales was a student and lived at 3 Withrow Ave in the east end of Toronto when he enlisted with the 19th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force on 10 Nov 1914.  He landed in France on 14 Sep 1915.

Schoales served as a bomber on the Brigade staff. An excerpt from a letter written by Schoales two days before his death says,

“we crept out this morning between 6 and 7 to the German wire entanglements, which is about 20 yards in front of their trenches and located their listening post, which we are going to bomb to-night. We crept out undercover of a mist and had the mist lifted, well, we would have been “missed” by our O.C. The Germans were eating their breakfast. We could see their trenches, and their sentry was evidently break-fasting. I went out with a Lance Corporal and another bomber, and between the three of us we only had one revolver. I had a bayonet, while the Lance Corporal had a club. You can’t carry a rifle, it is too clumsy while creeping over the ground”.

Rifleman Schoales was killed in action just over a month after landing in France on 19 October 1915 (his birthday) near Ypres at age 20 and is buried in Ridge Wood Military Cemetery, Belgium, grave reference II. M. 7.

He is memorialized on the WWI tablet in the QOR Regimental Church, St Paul’s Bloor Street in Toronto.

His Coin of Remembrance is held by Corporal Shuaib Mohamed.