Fonds PR3807 - T.E. Brown fonds

Thomas Erwin (‘Ernie’) Brown was born in Richmond, Ontario in 1899 to Robert Brown and Harriet Lillion Brown (nee Evoy). In August 1915, Thomas enlisted for service with the Canadian military’s 77th Battalion, forging his birth year on his attestation papers as 1894. Thomas was discharged from the battalion in September 1915, after it was found he was underage. On March 2 1916, Thomas enlisted again, this time successfully with the 73rd Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (Royal Highlanders of Canada) as a Private. He sailed from Halifax to England in June 1916. The battalion mobilized to the French theatre in October 1916. Thomas suffered a gunshot wound to his cheek in November 1916, and was pulled from active service twice due to ‘valvular disease of the heart’. Thomas was eventually promoted in 1918 to become a sergeant with the Canadian Airforce, 123rd squadron.

Thomas was discharged from service in July 1919, and returned to his home in Richmond Ontario to live with his parents. In 1920, he enrolled for studies in medicine at Queen’s University. While studying at Queen’s, Thomas was an active member of the medical student organization known as the Aesculapian society.

Thomas moved to Alberta in the late 1920s to practice medicine, settling in Taber with his new wife, Kathleen Ida Brown (nee Wilson). Thomas practiced general medicine and obstetrics in the Taber area. Kathleen passed away in 1932 from complications due to childbirth. Thomas remained in Taber and continued his practice, and a short time later met and married Margaret Killoran, a nurse from Vegreville, in 1933. The couple moved on from Taber to Lethbridge, where Thomas began work with the Campbell Clinic as a gynecologist and general practitioner.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Thomas enlisted for military service once again, this time as a captain in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. At the war’s end, he returned to Lethbridge to serve as a city alderman from 1946 to 1948. After his time in city council, Thomas returned to medicine in 1950 to become the Chief of Obstetrics at St Michael’s General Hospital in Lethbridge. He would occupy this role until 1968.

In addition to practicing medicine, Thomas was also a talented artist, in the mediums of sketching and watercolour. Between 1946 and 1968, his works received six awards from the Canadian Medical Association’s annual Physicians Art Salon.

Thomas passed away in 1971, survived by his wife Margaret and four children.