Early life

A Mi’gmaq from the Gesgapegiag First Nation. He was born near the town of Maria in the Gaspé peninsula region of Quebec in 1886. Jérome worked as a labourer and as a lumberjack before the war. While working as a lumberjack, he suffered an axe injury to his right hand. Despite this injury, he volunteered to serve with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in June 1916 .

When the war began in 1914, Indigenous individuals were not considered British subjects and were therefore ineligible to serve in the military. But by December 1915 as casualty rates rose overseas. the Canadian government encouraged Indigenous men to enlist, and more than 4,000 did — researchers estimate that a few thousand more enlisted without self-identifying as Indigenous.

Jérome enlists

He was 29 years old in June 1916 when he enlisted and joined the 189th Battalion, a francophone unit based in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec. Jérome departed Canada from Halifax on the SS Lapland on 27 September 1916, bound for England.

When he arrived, Jérome was transferred to the 14th Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment) in November 1916, and was sent to fight along the Western Front that crossed both France and Belgium.

He fought at Vimy Ridge, a watershed battle for Canadian soldiers in April 1917 and a crucial Allied victory. He also fought at Hill 70, at Passchendaele, and in the series of battles now known as “Canada’s Hundred Days,” which took place in the final months of the war, beginning with the Battle of Amiens in August 1918.

Heroic accomplishments

In that last year of the war, he rose through the ranks. He was promoted to Lance Corporal in May 1918, then to Corporal in November 1918, and would end his military service as Sergeant Jérome.

Frank Narcisse Jérome would become one of our country’s most highly decorated soldiers – becoming one of only 38 Canadians who received the Military Medal three times (this is represented by the medal adorned with two bars) during the conflict.

Records from the First World War are often incomplete and only the details for the first of his medals survives. In the closing days of November 1917, the 14th Battalion was helping hold the front lines near Avion (just north of Vimy). Private Jérome was a member of a Lewis machine gun crew when the Germans launched repeated trench raids. Despite being rocked by exploding artillery shells, Jérome continued at his post to help repel these attacks, then later organized a patrol to go into no man's land to identify and retrieve the bodies of fallen colleagues. His medal citation concludes by saying:

“His coolness under fire was a brilliant incentive to all ranks.”

Jérome’s courage would not end there. During the final months of the war, the Canadian Corps was in the forefront of a series of Allied attacks in the late summer and fall of 1918. He would earn the Military Medal again (the first bar) for his bravery in the fighting in late August (or early September) of 1918.

During the crossing of the Canal du Nord by the Canadian Corps on 27 September 1918, Jérome was wounded. He would remain on the front lines, however, and earn the second bar to his Military Medal for his brave actions during this battle.

Post-war life

Jérome survived his wartime combat but the danger he faced was not over as he became seriously ill with influenza in February 1919, and would need months to recover. Sergeant Jérome was discharged from the army in Montréal on 17 September 1919 and finally returned to civilian life after more than three years in uniform.

Sadly, Jérome died of pneumonia in 1934. He was 47 years old. His headstone can be found in the cemetery at Gesgapegiag and his name appears on the cemetery's war memorial as well as on the community’s Gesgapegiag Cenotaph.