Tillson Harrison

Tillson Lever Harrison (January 7, 1881 – January 10, 1947) was a Canadian physician, army officer and adventurer. Moving to New York and enlisting in the United States Army at an early age, he later returned to Canada to attend the University of Toronto before practising as a physician in a number of dangerous positions, such as the Chief of Medical Staff to Pancho Villa and the doctor for the Chinese Labour Corps, a workforce of over 200,000 men. After World War I, he traveled throughout the Middle East, treating venereal disease and operating an X-ray facility in Lod, Mandatory Palestine.

After attempting to elope with one of his Middle East hospital patients, Harrison was deported to Canada but managed to jump ship in Morocco and join the Free State Army. In the 1930s, he traveled through 15 countries and dependencies performing medical duties, and served as a ship's doctor on a liner that crossed the Indian Ocean during World War II . From 1946 until his death, he assisted in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in China, saving many lives.

By the end of his life, Harrison could speak six languages, had participated in seven wars, and was married to four women at the same time. His daughter Rosalind said that the character Indiana Jones was based on him. According to Rosalind, film producers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg contacted her after her father's death and conducted a series of interviews, during which she provided an account of his life.

Early life

Harrison was born on January 7, 1881, in Tillsonburg, Ontario, a town named for his great-grandfather George. His grandfather, Edwin Delevan Tillson, was the builder of what is now the Annandale National Historic Site. As a child, Harrison was considered a troublemaker. On one occasion he locked his grandmother in her bedroom and on another became a local newspaper sensation after his attempt to travel to Cuba was discovered. While serving with the US Army, Harrison contracted cholera and returned to Canada. Using the inheritance he had received from his recently deceased grandfather, Harrison began attending the University of Toronto medical school before marrying Sybil Wilkin, a lawyer's daughter, in 1905.

After his graduation from medical school in 1907, Harrison gained employment with the Hudson's Bay Company and began treating the Cree community of Alberta and acting as the local postmaster. Because of his restless nature, Harrison left his family in Oregon and traveled to London in 1913 to undergo postgraduate work in gynecology and obstetrics. When World War I began in 1914, Harrison assisted in the war effort in Belgium. While there, he met a Turkish woman named Eva, and married her without divorcing his first wife. In 1915, Harrison and his new wife traveled to El Paso, Texas, to settle down. The town of Tillsonburg, Ontario (named for Harrison's great-grandfather) maintains a lasting relationship with the hospital, which was renamed as such from the previous name of Handan International Peace Hospital in 1947. In 1988, the Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, sent a commemorative letter to the Chinese ambassador to mark the centenary of Harrison's birth. However at that time it was not made clear that Harrison had falsified his age when enlisting in the UNRRA, and the celebrations took place seven years after the actual centenary.

According to Harrison's daughter, Rosalind, several decades after her father's death, film producers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg contacted her, and in a series of interviews, Rosalind provided an account of her father's illustrious life. This, she claims, became the inspiration for the highly successful Indiana Jones film series.