Norman Christopherson was born in Norway in 1919. His family - including parents Peter and Hilda, sisters Rigmore and Wesla, and brother Wilfred - moved to Canada in the 1920s. In high school, Norman won scholarships for Latin and Greek and prizes for poetry. At the University of Toronto he was again a star student, as well as an editor at the school's literary magazine, Acta Victoriana. While enrolled at Osgoode Hall Law School, he volunteered for service with the Canadian Army and in the summer of 1943 was on a troopship set for England. As he wrote to his parents in May 1944, "I couldn’t very well stay out of the army—I had to help somehow. If people are being bullied by someone, any decent person would take a hand trying to stop him. And joining the army means taking the risks involved, so though I’m afraid at times, I pray I’ll be brave enough to do my share. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t come back, and I probably will so there’s nothing to worry about." Norman died at Falaise pocket on August 10, 1944, leaving behind family, friends, and his fiancée, Christine Campbell MacLeod. His brother, Wilfred, served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and survived the war. In 2017, Norman was granted an honorary call to the bar by the Law Society of Upper Canada, and in 2022, a collection of his war letters and poems was published ("Love to All, Norm: A Canadian Soldier's Letters Home from the Second World War").