Born in Ottawa on Thursday 29 June 1899 according to his Ontario birth registration, son of Adebert and Charlotte Young, Cecil Charles Young lied about his age when he enlisted with the PPCLI in December 1916. On enlistment, he gave his occupation as a papermaker and address as 50 Kent Street, Ottawa.
He had three sisters. His father is no longer in the household in 1911 having apparently left for the US.
Service Number 507483, he went overseas in November 1917 and to France the following spring where he received a gunshot wound in the leg on 27 August. Returning to Canada he was discharged on 25 July 1919.
He died a century ago, on 2 July 1921, of ulcerative endocarditis attributed to war service and is interred in Lot 14. Sec. 29. 22 at Beechwood Cemetery. A death notice placed in the Ottawa Citizen by his mother and sisters included the verse
In a graveyard on the hillside,
Where the trees their branches wave,
Sleeps the boy we loved from childhood,
In a lone and silent grave.
How we loved you, Cecil, loved you,
Friends may think the wound is healed,
But they little know the sorrow,
That is in our hearts concealed.