Emma Matilda "Lillie" Aiken

Lieutenant Aiken was a Soldier of Christ with the Salvation Army in Ontario. During the gold rush, Lillie and Rebecca Ellery were chosen to be part of a Klondike contingent and the group boarded a westbound train in mid-April 1898. There were seven men and two women and forty-one-year-old Rebecca was a senior member. In Dawson, the group held meetings nightly and three times on Sundays but did not get a convert until late fall. The women’s meetings were more successful, and they attended invalids in their cabins and visited prisoners in the jail. The Salvation Army did good work, offering free meals and beds to the destitute, and handing out clothing to anyone who needed it. They ran a labour bureau and had a woodyard where the unemployed could earn money sawing and splitting logs. The members of the group had signed on for a minimum of twelve months and they stayed until 1900. Lillie departed to obtain a divorce from her husband in Ontario so she could marry a Klondiker.((Frances Backhouse, //Women of the Klondike, 15th Anniversary Edition.// Whitecap, 2010: 117-123.))