Deseronto Archives

On this day in 1918 Adrian Storm Rathbun, a railway clerk for the Southern Pacific Company, enlisted via the British Canadian Recruiting Mission, presumably in San Francisco, where he was living at the time, at 1105 Bush Street. He was born in Deseronto on February 11th, 1887, the son of Edward Wilkes Rathbun and Bunella (née McMurrich).

The photograph above was taken on April 11th, 1909 on the veranda of the Rathbun family’s home on Main Street, Deseronto, and shows Adrian on the left, with Betty Caldwell, John Gzowski and Marjorie Braithwaite (on the right). In 1909 Adrian graduated from McGill University. John Gzowski graduated from the University of Toronto in 1910 and enlisted on November 13th, 1914, ending the war with the rank of Captain.

Adrian joined the 68th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery with the regimental number 2557478. He was five foot six and three quarter inches tall, with a fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. His service record shows that he arrived in England on the SS Tunisian on April 19th, 1918 and crossed the Channel to France in October. On December 28th he joined the 3rd Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery. He was back in England in April and left for Canada on the SS Aquitania on May 19th, 1919. When he arrived back in Halifax he was treated for scabies at the Cogswell Street Military Hospital. He was demobilized in Toronto on June 3rd, 1919.

In 1921 Rathbun was living in Burnaby Street, Vancouver. He married Robina Elizabeth Morrison on March 30th, 1922 in New Westminster. In 1930 the couple were living at 918 South Beacon Street in Los Angeles, where Adrian was working as an office clerk in an oil plant, according to the US census (taken on April 14th, 1930). He died three months later, aged 43, on June 30th, 1930 in Los Angeles.