Yukon who is who

Charles Thomas “Chuck” Stanger (1924-2019)

Charles Stanger grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and was active in sports and the Boy Scouts as a youth. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force when he was nineteen and served from 1943 to 1947. He was stationed at Camp Bordon, Ontario when he met his future wife, payroll officer Laura Harris, and they soon married. Charles was still in the military when he was stationed in Whitehorse and he and Laura started their family here. He was honourably discharged in 1947 and received the Canadian Voluntary Service medal and the Canadian Interim Service medal.¹⁾

Reverend Stanger studied at St. John’s College, Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, and was then ordained as a minister in the Anglican Church. He came to Christ Church, Whitehorse in 1950 as curate in charge and shortly after was appointed principal of the Chooutla School in Carcross. The federal government built and opened the new residential school in 1954 and the Stangers made the transition from the old buildings to the new. Upwards of 120 boys and girls were resident at the school in 1956.²⁾

The Stangers and their two children, Judy and John, moved to Alberta in 1956 where Reverend Stanger became principal of St. Cyprians Indian School, Brocket, in the diocese of Calgary. His successor at Carcross was Eric S.W. Cole, former principal of the Old Sun School on the Blackfeet Reserve Gleichen, Alberta.³⁾

The family moved to Ontario in 1959 where Charles ministered in Hamilton, Ridgeway, and Bertie before becoming a social worker with Family and Children’s Services in Renfew County, Pembroke, Ontario. He retired in 1989.⁴⁾ Mrs. Laura Stanger wrote a self-published book in 2012 reflecting on her time at the Chootla school.⁵⁾