Captain Thomas Edgar Parkinson was born in Toronto, Ontario on 12 June 1909, the son of Matthew Parkinson and Elizabeth Fife Mcgladery. He had a sister and three brothers,  attended Parkdale Public School and received his senior matriculation at age 17 from Humberside Collegiate Institute in 1929. He was a Timothy Eaton Memorial United Church elder and founder and leader of the church’s Dorian group for young men.

He married Helen Harriet Rogers in 1935 but they had no children.

Parkinson worked as a broker with H.R. Bain and Company when he enlisted as a Second Lieutenant with The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada  (Active Service) on 11 July 1940. He was 6 feet tall, weighed 170 pounds, had a fair complexion, fair hair and blue eyes.

He’d joined the QOR (Militia) in 1939, and served with “W” Force in Newfoundland in 1940. Parkinson trained in Sussex, New Brunswick, arrived in Scotland with the Regiment on 30 July 1941 and was promoted to Lieutenant on 3 August.

While in the United Kingdom, he had various training courses, postings, leaves and hospital visits in 1941 and 1942, was appointed Acting Captain on 1 April 1943, and was promoted to Captain on 6 May 1944.

Parkinson was a “landing officer” on Juno Beach with Battalion Headquarters on D-Day, 6 June 1944 and was wounded near Caen, France on 4 July.

Captain Parkinson was killed in action near Boulogne, France on 18 September 1944, aged 35 and is buried in the Calais Canadian War Cemetery, grave reference 6. B. 12. His family chose the following epitaph for his grave marker:

HE WAS EVERBODY’S FRIEND
AND DIED
THAT OTHERS MIGHT LIVE