COLONEL NORMAN S. EDGAR.
 


	More than a score of years have come and gone since Colonel Norman
S. Edgar arrived in Regina.  The city was then in its infancy and
throughout the intervening period he has been a factor in the advancement
of the business interests upon which the growth and prosperity of this
region depend. As a soldier of distinction he is also widely known and
his life history cannot fail to prove of interest to his many friends in
Saskatchewan. Born at Chatham, New Brunswick, on the 5th of Fe~
ruary, 1878, he is the son and eighth child in the family of nine born to
James and Isabella (McKnight) Edgar. On his father's side of the house
he is descended from Scotch great-grandparents, but he belongs to the
third generation of the Edgar family to be born in New Brunswick. James
Edgar was left an orphan at an early age, with younger brothers and sis-
ters dependent upon him. Young as he was he manfully shouldered the
task of bringing up the six younger ones in his family and in due time
saw that they were all educated and prepared to fill a useful and honor-
able place in life. He was a well read man with broad interests and took
an especially keen interest in Liberal politics. A stanch Presbyterian, he
was one of the most active members of St. Andrew's church of Chatham
and its ruling elder for forty years. His business, for much of his mature
life, was managing the affairs of the W. S. Loggie Company, fish packers.
Mrs. Edgar, also, was born in New Brunswick, and like her husband lived
there all of her life.
	Norman S. Edgar was educated in the Chatham high school and the
Fredericton Normal School, following which he taught school for a time
in Chatham and Newcastle. In 1895 he became associated with the firm
of G. A. Lounsbury & Company, dealers in farm machinery, wagons and
equipment, with whom he remained for four years.  He came west to
Calgary in 1900, where he had some real plains experiences 'punching"
cows, but shortly located in Lacombe, Alberta, where he worked for the
Lacombe Cooperative Association as an accountant, from 1900 to 1902.
It was in the latter year that he came to Regina and became provincial
manager for the Mason & Risch Piano Company. He retained this posi-
tion for ten years, after which he began managing his large farm in the
Goose Lake district-his occupation at the outbreak of the Great war.
Since the war he has resumed his connection with the piano concern and
now is manager for the Mason & Risch Piano Company for the territory
of southern Saskatchewan.
	While he was still living in the east, in 1894, Colonel Edgar belonged
to the Canadian Militia. When the Sixteenth Light Horse was established
he joined this troop, reentering the military service in 1907 as a lieutenant.
He had been promoted to the rank of major when he went overseas in 1914,
with the First Division, Second Brigade, Fifth Western Cavalry.  To
Colonel Edgar was accorded the distinction of being the first Canadian
officer to reach France. Leaving England on the 10th of November, 1914,
for the western front, he fought with the Belgian and French troops in
those early months of the war, taking part in the battles of Nieuport and
Nieuport Bains, with the.Fourteenth Battalion, French Infantry.  The
Fifth Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Forces, in which Colonel Edgar
served, received more honors for gallant fighting than any other Canadian
regiment and probably as much as any of the brave British regiments.
At Festubert, the little village in northeast France that has gone down in
history as the scene of a heroic stand against the enemy attacks, made by
the Canadian troops in 1915, Colonel Edgar was seriously wounded. The
next three months following May 24, 1915, he spent in a military hospital,
where the surgeons removed from his body nineteen pieces of shells, bul-
lets and shrapnel. When he was sufficiently recovered to make the voyage
he was sent back to Canada as officer in command of the steamship Hes-
perion.  Here again the gods of war took him into their favor, for on
her very next voyage the Hesperion went to the bottom of the sea, the
victim of an enemy torpedo. In Canada he took charge of the Sixty-eighth
Battalion, recruited over three thousand men and had gone as far as Hali-
fax on the way back to France with his new recruits when he was recalled
to Regina to take charge of Military District No.12. The establishment
of this district was largely the result of his own hard work and he was
the first commanding officer. At this juncture he was raised to the rank
of full colonel.  He now has command of the Seventh Mounted Brigade
and will soon be eligible for his long service medal-twenty years.
	In September of 1912 Norman S. Edgar was married to Eva Naomi
Carnegie, daughter of James Carnegie and a native of Port Perry, Ontario.
Her father, a distant cousin of the late Andrew Carnegie, is interested in
the lumber milling industry. One son has been born to Colonel and Mrs.
Edgar, a boy of eight named Norman Salisbury Edgar. He was christened
by his father's regiment on the Plains of Salisbury, England. Mrs. Edgar
is an active worker in the Presbyterian church, of which she is a member
and secretary and treasurer of the Girl Guides. The Colonel is a Mason
and belongs to the Assiniboia, Wascana Country, Army and Navy, and
United Service Clubs and to the Great War Veterans Association.
He is president of the Cavalry Association of Saskatchewan. Horseman-
ship and rifle practice are his two hobbies and in each of them he is an ex-
pert, riding like a centaur and having a record as an excellent marksman.

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