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Name: GOWANS, James Dakers (Capt.) (Dr.)
Nee: elder bro of Dr. William Harvey Gowans, Stanley Bate Gowans, Charles Harvey King Gowans and Dorothy Wreford-Smith
Birth Date: 12 Sep 1881 Broughty Ferry
Death Date: 1923 Hamilton, Ontario
First Date: 1922
Profession: Medical doctor
Area: Box 310, Nairobi
Married: 1. In Riga, Latvia 20 Aug 1909 Helene Florence Henriette Marie von Berends b. 18 June 1885 St Petersburg. d. 1910; 2. In Russia 1911 Bertha Carrie b. 4 Aug 1891 Hungerburg, Estonia, d. 25 Aug 1971 Wolverhampton (she m. in 1927 in Tartu, Estonia Charles Arnold Hinde 1893-1980)
Children: 1. Daisy Louisa Marie Frances (9 Dec 1910 Riga, Latvia) 2. Mary Frances (1 Jan 1912 Gdoff, Petrograd-2004); James Dakers (16 Feb 1914 Gdoff, Petrograd-1995)
Book Reference: Red 22
General Information:
Ursula Clarke (relative): He spent most of his adult life in Russsia, where he was a flax merchant. He was still there at the outbreak of WW1 and served for most of the war in the Imperial Russian Army, as a Brigade Major in a Cossack Regiment. He remained in Russia from 1917-1919, serving first with the White Army and then finally joining the British army. He finally returned to England in 1920, to join his wife and children who had returned some point earlier. James subsequently farmed in Devon for a couple of years but either didn’t settle – or wasn’t very successful – because he emigrated to Canada in 1924 to work as an Indian Agent but died very soon after arrival, leaving his family destitute. His widow and two young children finally returned to England in 1926, where they settled with James’s maternal cousins in Wolverhampton.