Yukon who is who

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Beatrice Lorne (1866 - 1945)
	
Beatrice Heley was born in Scotland and her family moved to Sydney, Australia when she was ten years old. Beatrice always wanted to sing. When she was fifteen, she visited Madame Annis Montague, the head singer of an opera company, and gave her an impromptu audition in a hotel room. Dame Montague took her on and Beatrice Lorne, as she called herself, went from signing in the chorus to being a featured performer. In 1890, she was singing popular ballads in the Australian music hall circuit.((Michael Gates, “History Hunter: Beatrice Lorne – the ‘Klondike Nightingale.’” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 20 November 2020.))

Beatrice married actor Alfred James, and they had a daughter. They were in the United States by 1892 and in 1895 Beatrice was billed as ‘The Australian Nightingale’ at the New Vienna Buffet in Los Angeles. In 1899, she and other performers were at the Savoy Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia and that fall she followed them north to Dawson for a theatrical engagement.((Michael Gates, “History Hunter: Beatrice Lorne – the ‘Klondike Nightingale.’” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 20 November 2020.))

Beatrice sang at the Monte Carlo and then performed everything from opera to popular ballads at every other dance hall and theatre in Dawson. She married Dr. George Smith in 1901. He was a veterinarian and mine broker, and she continued to sing in Dawson’s theatre productions and at church services. One Methodist churchgoer objected and posted a letter to that effect after the newspaper refused to publish it. Dr. Smith punched him in the nose and received a one dollar fine from a sympathetic judge.((Michael Gates, “History Hunter: Beatrice Lorne – the ‘Klondike Nightingale.’” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 20 November 2020.))

Beatrice travelled to perform in Vancouver several times before leaving the Klondike in 1907. In 1908 she was on the program of the Pantages Theatre in Vancouver and in 1929, she sang at the Canadian Memorial Chapel. In that year, she sang to hundreds of Yukon veterans at the Sourdough Stampede [Rendezvous?] in Seattle. A Dawson contemporary, Bert Parker, remembered her as one of the best influences for sourdough Yukoners.((Michael Gates, “History Hunter: Beatrice Lorne – the ‘Klondike Nightingale.’” //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), 20 November 2020.))