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This is a true story of life and death in Rat Portage (now Kenora) taken from contemporary accounts.
Thomas Drewes was a simple man. At 37 years old he spent most of his life in Europe before emigrating to Canada. He was a burly German with a flaming red beard and soft grey eyes. He spoke broken English with a thick accent. He was a quiet man, and a bit socially awkward. He was also known to have a violent temper. Drewes arrived in Rat Portage in the Fall of 1882 and found work as a chore man at the McKeown boarding house on Matheson Street.