Donald Paterson, 5 Upper Barvas

22 December 1944
There was as military funeral at Barvas on Wednesday last when a detachment of the Home Guard attended the burial of Donald Paterson, of Toronto (formerly of 5 Upper Barvas) who died in an English Hospital the previous week from multiple injuries, the result of enemy action. He was serving with the Ordnance Section of the Canadian Army.

Although the latter wears were spent in Canada, there are many in Lewis who still cherish pleasant memories of Donald Paterson. He served in the last war with the Ross Mountain Battery, and was wounded at the Gallipoli Landing in 1915. When he recovered from his wounds he was gazetted Lieutenant and posted to the RASC as a supply officer, in which capacity he saw service in France.

He had been in the Nicolson prior to the war, but, like many others, he did not feel like resuming a scholastic career and he remained in the army until 1922. He did Civil Service work for the War Office until 1926, when he went to Canada and found employment with a firm of chartered accountants. He took an active part in the social and literary life of Toronto. He was secretary and treasurer of the Orange Lodge and President of the Oddfellows Lodge and President of the Shakespeare Club. He joined up again and came over with the first Canadian Division in October 1939.

Donald Paterson would have been fifty next month. A born gentleman, he gave his fellow men more than he received in that span of half a century, and all who knew him as a fellow student or soldier comrade will mourn his death. Very appropriately, members of the staff and pupils of the Nicolson Institute lined the gangway when the remains were brought at Stornoway.

He is the third son which the Paterson family have given to the Empire. Angus and Kenneth were killed in the last war, Angus while serving with the 2nd Seaforths, at the age of 17, and Kenneth while serving in the Trawler Section of the Navy. A brother and sister survive. Anne is one of the first group of Assistant Woman Chaplains to be appointed to the Forces, and she is shortly going out to Kenya, after she has made a tour of the women's sections of the Forces in this country. He ordination will take place soon. She was able to be with her brother Donald until he died. The surviving brother is Norman Paterson, Rosevale, Barvas, who is presently engaged in the shipbuilding industry on the mainland.