THE FORTYNINER - Alberta Genealogy Research "The Recents"

The Forty-Niner
daughter could admire the beautiful certificate that
had arrived that morning.
Money was tight for the family during those war
years. The Campbells could not possibly afford
to frame the certificate. Instead, Mrs. Campbell
would have carefully placed the box containing the
certificate away for safekeeping.
The cardboard box with the certificate inside would
move twice. The first time was in 1950 when Mr.
and Mrs. Campbell bought a home in nearby King
Edward Park; son Rod came to live with them. The
second time was in 1956, following the death of
Mrs. Campbell. After losing his wife, Mr. Campbell
and Rod moved in with Catherine’s family who
resided in Bonnie Doon.
The cardboard box, in safekeeping at three homes
over the years, would end up being stored away for
almost six and a half decades.
The year is 2006 ...
In December of 2006, my Aunt Hazel’s last
remaining brother (Rod) and last remaining sister
(Catherine) died within thirty hours of each other.
With both Rod and Catherine gone, my Aunt Hazel
became the last living Campbell sibling.
Rod had never married and had remained living
in his sister’s Bonnie Doon home following their
father’s death a number of years earlier. Catherine
had been widowed, so this brother and sister
remained living together in their senior years in
this same house.
Following a double funeral and burial of this
much-loved brother and sister, the dawn of 2007
meant that family members would need to go
through the house to ready it for sale. Years and
years of memories in the form of photographs and
belongings needed to be sorted through. Decisions
had to be made about furniture and household
items.
Behind the door in a downstairs bedroom that his
Uncle Rod had slept in, Catherine’s son, Murray,
discovered a dusty flat cardboard box. What could
this be?
The box contained a Certificate of Service for three
of his maternal uncles: Angus, Rod and Stan. He
brought it upstairs to his Aunt Hazel to show the
certificate to her.
The framed certificate of service
She could not recall ever seeing the certificate
... even when she and her sister and her three
brothers returned home from service following
World War II so many years before. Maybe her
brothers hadn’t even known of its existence as her
parents had never discovered how the certificate
had arrived in their hands. In the midst of their
joy of five children coming home safely from war,
perhaps it had not crossed their minds to bring out
the certificate to show their children.
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