Locket reveals mystery soldier
"It would be nice if I could find the name of this guy, before too long"
Posted By BOB BRUTON
Posted 15 days ago
He looks out from beneath a soldier's cap, clean-shaven with short hair, his uniform pressed yet unadorned by medals.
Not a young man, but not an old soldier either. There's a keenness to his straight-ahead stare showing a sincerity that places him from a different time, and another war.
His Canadian army uniform appears to be Second World War vintage, there's snow on the trees behind him in the picture.
And that's where the mystery begins. Who is this man?
"I often times call him 'my soldier'," said Shelley Moreau of Springwater Township. "It would be nice if I could find the name of this guy, before too long."
She found his picture in a silver locket, purchased for $55 at a Wasaga Beach-area flea market during the summer of 2008. Moreau believes the locket itself is 60 to 80 years old, and came from an unknown estate sale.
"The woman who sold it to me said she keeps things intact (the locket and its photograph), that it was not her role to throw it out," she said.
But now Moreau wants to solve the mystery, wants to know who this man is, where he's from, how he's lived his life and what happened to him.
"I just think it would be neat if someone saw it and said, 'Hey, I know who that is'," said Shelley's mom, Diane.
"Did he go to war? When did he go to war?" said Gilbert Moreau, Shelley's dad.
"Was it (the locket) his mom's, his wife's, his grandchild's?" said Shelley. "It would be neat if he was from around here."
She also knows a thing or two about old pieces. Moreau works at Back In Thyme, a Coldwater antique store. And she's particularly interested in old jewelry.
