Yukon who is who

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Charles Rodney Thornback
	
Charles Thornback was born in England and moved to Dawson as a Royal North-West Mounted Police officer. He met Margaret Erskine McCarter in Dawson and they were engaged to be married in 1914. Thornback travelled back to England when war broke out and enlisted for service in the British Army in February 1916. McCarter joined him in July and the couple were married in Southampton in October. Their first child was born in January 1918 in Wareham, Dorset, England.((“Margaret Erskine McCarter fonds.” Dawson City Museum, 2020 website: http://www.dawsonmuseum.ca/archives/fonds-descriptions/?id=25)) 
	
Thornback returned to Dawson in June 1919.((Yukon Archives, GOV 1654.)) In August 1919 there was a reception at the Arctic Brotherhood Hall to honour the returned soldiers. Dr. Thompson and George Black gave speeches followed by musical performances including Captain Charles Thornback singing “The Hills of Donegal” accompanied by his wife on the piano.((Michael Gates, //From the Klondike to Berlin: The Yukon in World War I.// Harbour Publishing, 2017.))  
	
The Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-Enlistment arranged for a reduced rate for Thornback and other returned soldiers to travel to British Columbia in the fall of 1919.((Yukon Archives, GOV 1654, f.29600-G.)) Thornback travelled south for medical attention in February 1920. The Thornbacks second child was born in Dawson in December 1920. While he was in Vancouver, Thornback became involved with a nurse and he and his wife divorced in October 1922. It was the first divorce case to be heard in the Yukon. Margaret died of tuberculosis in 1924 and the children were adopted by their maternal grandparents Alexander and Helen McCarter. The family left Dawson in 1932.((“Margaret Erskine McCarter fonds.” Dawson City Museum, 2020 website: http://www.dawsonmuseum.ca/archives/fonds-descriptions/?id=25))