This stained glass window honours Private Albert Mountain Horse who died on November 19, 1915, from injuries received at the Battle of St. Julien, France.
Mountain Horse was born on December 25, 1892, on the Kainai Blood Reserve in southern Alberta to Mountain Horse and Sikski. According to tribal custom, a medicine woman proclaimed his arrival and announced his name, Kukutosi-poota (Flying Star). She explained that many shooting stars had been visible during the night. At the age of seven he was baptized Albert and enrolled at St. Paul’s Residential School where his traditional braids were cut off. When he was old enough, Mountain Horse joined the Cadet Corps and later attended military school in Calgary.
At the outbreak of the First World War he was a commissioned officer in the Canadian Militia with the rank of lieutenant in the 23rd Alberta Rangers and was working as a cadet instructor. Mountain Horse volunteered with the No. 14 Company, Canadian Army Service Corps in order to deploy sooner. He then proceeded to Valcartier, Quebec, as part of the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
His first action was at Ypres, Belgium, in April 1915 where he was gassed by the Germans. Mountain Horse came through the battle without serious injury, but was gassed two more times in 1915. He was hospitalized and declared unfit for active duty. He was sent back to Canada, but his lungs were so weakened that tuberculosis set in and he died only one day after landing at Quebec.
After Albert's death his brothers Joe and Mike Mountain Horse enlisted and were sent overseas. Joe was wounded in 1917 in the first engagement at Arras, France, and Mike in the second battle of Cambrai in 1918. Both recovered. In 1939, Mike would again enlist for overseas duty.
