Diefenbaker - Early Life

Early Life

Diefenbaker was born on September 18, 1895, in Neustadt, Ontario, to William Thomas Diefenbaker and the former Mary Florence Bannerman. His father was the son of German immigrants; Mary Diefenbaker was of Scottish descent. The family moved to several locations in Ontario in John's early years. William Diefenbaker was a teacher, and had deep interests in history and politics, which he sought to inculcate in his students. He had remarkable success doing so; of the 28 students at his school near Toronto in 1903, four, including his son John, served as Conservative MPs in the 19th Canadian Parliament beginning in 1940.

The Diefenbaker family moved west in 1903, for William Diefenbaker to accept a position near Fort Carlton, then in the Northwest Territories (now in Saskatchewan). In 1906, William claimed a quarter-section, 160 acres (0.65 km2) of undeveloped land near Borden, Saskatchewan. In February 1910, the Diefenbaker family moved to Saskatoon, the site of the University of Saskatchewan. William and Mary Diefenbaker felt that John and his brother Elmer would have greater educational opportunities in Saskatoon.

John Diefenbaker had been interested in politics from an early age, and told his mother at the age of eight or nine that he would some day be Prime Minister. She told him that it was an impossible ambition, especially for a boy living on the prairies. She would live to be proved wrong. John's first contact with politics came in 1910, when he sold a newspaper to Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in Saskatoon to lay the cornerstone for the University's first building. The present and future Prime Ministers conversed, and when giving his speech that afternoon, Sir Wilfrid commented on the newsboy who had ended their conversation by saying, "I can't waste any more time on you, Prime Minister. I must get about my work."

After graduating from high school in Saskatoon, in 1912, Diefenbaker entered the University of Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1915, and his Master of Arts the following year.

Diefenbaker was commissioned a lieutenant into the 196th (Western Universities) Battalion, CEF in May 1916. In September, Diefenbaker was part of a contingent of 300 junior officers sent to the United Kingdom for pre-deployment training. Diefenbaker related in his memoirs that he was hit by a shovel, and the injury eventually resulted in his being invalided home. Diefenbaker's recollections do not correspond with his army medical records, which show no contemporary account of such an injury, and his biographer, Denis Smith, speculates that any injury was psychosomatic.

After leaving the military in 1917, Diefenbaker returned to Saskatchewan where he resumed his work as an articling student in law. He received his law degree in 1919, the first student to secure three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. On June 30, 1919, he was called to the bar, and the following day, opened a small practice in the village of Wakaw, Saskatchewan.