The Egertons were an army family. Frank Sr. fought in World War I and neighbours often spotted him in the backyard of his Foxley St. house, near Dundas St. W. and Ossington, running his sons through military drills.

Egerton hung a stuffed bag on the fence and the boys tackled it with bayonets attached to the end of a rifle. Stan, the youngest, idolized his older brothers.

When World War II erupted, George and Frank Jr. enlisted and went overseas to fight the Germans. Stan, too young to serve, vowed to follow them.

He joined the Queen’s York Rangers reserve force as a bugle boy. When he turned 16, he “got up the nerve” to visit the recruiting office for the Toronto Scottish Regiment, his brothers’ unit, at the Exhibition grounds. He said he was 18. The recruiting officer looked at him suspiciously but replied: “Sign here.”

Stan was ecstatic. “I wanted to be with my brothers. That’s why I enlisted.”

Two weeks later he was on his way to North Bay for basic training, then to Trois Rivières, Que., for machine-gun training.

His mother, Jean, who cleaned offices to help support her four children, was proud of her sons. “George has been on guard at Buckingham Palace,” she told the Toronto Star in a 1942 article about the three young soldiers. “George and Frank don’t complain about a thing over there. They love the army life. It was born in them.”

In March 1942, Stan Egerton, a gifted track athlete and high school dropout, boarded the S.S. Latisha and sailed to Britain. He slept in a hammock during the 10-day journey. He was 17.

George was the cleverest of the Egerton brothers. But when Frank Sr. died suddenly in 1938, George dropped out of high school and took a job as a sales clerk at a Dominion store on College St.

In the army, he showed promise. In 1943, his commanding officer noted his maturity when he recommended George for officer cadet training: “In spite of his youth, he has exceptional qualities as leader and is an excellent instructor.”

Stan had always leaned on his older brother for advice. After arriving in Britain, the younger Egerton took a leave the first chance he could and found his brother’s unit. George looked shocked, but happy. “Let’s go get a drink,” he said. They went to a pub even though Stan was still a minor.

Frank was more of a loner. But during a leave in Scotland to visit his mother’s relatives, he met a woman named Mary Goligher and they married in March 1943. A year later, just as the Allies readied for their assault on Normandy, Mary gave birth to their son, Frank.

The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade were part of the Allied forces, which landed at Juno Beach on June 6, 1944. George and Stan were part of a unit scheduled to land two weeks later but a storm delayed them another two weeks. Frank, meanwhile, had been sent to the Italian front.

George and Stan landed in France on July 6 and advanced inland toward the town of La Rosière to relieve a British unit. The pushback from the Germans was fierce. For the next month, “we were firing night and day,” Stan recalled.

On Aug. 2, Stan was awakened by a sergeant and ordered to get up. “C’mon, your brother’s been killed and we got to bury him,” he barked.

Stan buried George in an apple orchard near the village of Ifs. The mortar blast that killed him didn’t leave a single cut or mark on his body.

The Allies seized Normandy and moved north, chasing the Germans into Belgium and Holland. It was there that Stan learned his brother Frank had been killed by mortar in Rimini, Italy.

Stan was the lone surviving Egerton brother.

The Egerton clan was reduced to Stan, his mother Jean and his younger sister. Jean Egerton would ensure her surviving son came home. Two months after Frank was killed, she sent a plaintive note to the military:

“This is the second son of mine who has been killed in action in this war,” she wrote. “My only surviving son, Pte. Stanley Edgerton (sic) B-77377, is now serving the Toronto Scottish Regiment. He has been overseas 3 years, and was nineteen years old October 1944. As I am a widow, I would like to have this boy transferred where he would be safe. Might this be brought to the attention of the proper authorities, please.”

Ottawa responded. On March 26, 1945, while fighting in Holland, Stan was ordered off the front to battalion headquarters, where he spent the rest of the war guarding German prisoners.

Stan was on leave in England when the war ended and he returned to Toronto in July 1945.

At Jean Egerton’s urging, Frank’s widow, Mary, and their baby travelled from Scotland to Canada. Frank’s young family moved into the Foxley St. house, but the arrangement didn’t work. Within months, Mary Egerton wrote to the Department of National Defence, asking for help to go back. The return address was Moncton, N.B.

“I formerly came from Scotland and I am trying to go back home and take my baby with me, but I have no money and I would be grateful if you could settle it for me. I need some money badly so could please (sic) settle my husband’s affairs for me.”

Stan said his mother and sister-in-law didn’t get along. His mother didn’t think any woman was good enough for her sons. But Mary left baby Frank for long periods of time with his mother.

George and Frank were reburied in military cemeteries in France and Italy.

George lies in Bény-sur-Mer in Normandy. Stan visited in 1985 for D-Day ceremonies. Frank’s remains were exhumed and taken to the Coriano Ridge British Empire Cemetery.

After the war, Stan returned to Toronto, married and settled in North York. He and his wife, Dolly, “the love of my life,” had four children. He was a Toronto firefighter for 40 years, but his greatest postwar adventures came on the track.

He won a silver medal in the pole vault in Auckland at the 1950 British Empire Games, a precursor of the Commonwealth Games. After retirement, he hit the masters sporting circuit, competing in track and pole vault, scooping medals at events around the world. He competed until age 80.

Two bad falls earlier this year ended his workouts. Now 85, he has outlived his entire immediate family, including his younger sister, Jean. Dolly and two sons also predeceased him.

After his wife’s death, he sold the family home in North York and moved to a bungalow in a Burlington subdivision to be near his daughter Carolyn. Portraits of his fallen brothers and father are mounted in his basement recreation room alongside their medals. He spends a lot of time alone.

“I’ve got a lot of time to think. It gets lonely at the top.” Reliving his brothers’ deaths is painful.

“Nobody ever wins a war,” Stan said, tears sliding down his ruddy cheeks.

“It’s the same on both sides. It’s the families who suffer. Yeah, it’s a damn waste.”