First World War uniform donated to Lethbridge museum after it was found in theatre basement – Lethbridge
A big historic artifact is now within the fingers of the Galt Museum & Archives in Lethbridge, after it was present in a neighborhood theatre basement.
Elaine Jagielski, president of the 98-year-old newbie theatre group Lethbridge Playgoers, stated it began in 2017.
“When the (Yates Memorial Centre) was going to be present process renovations, all the things needed to be cleared out,” she defined.
“These kinds of things, you understand navy uniforms, or something alongside these strains we thought might need some significance for somebody.”
Greater than 100 gadgets had been relocated from the Playgoers’ assortment to specialists on the Galt, who discovered one piece of explicit curiosity: Mayor A.B. Stafford’s World Struggle One uniform.
Full-length portrait of Main A. B. Stafford in uniform.
Courtesy: Galt Museum & Archives
“We do know navy materials is commonly marked both with a reputation or a service quantity and in order that’s what we targeted in on as we took gadgets out,” defined museum collections technician Kevin MacLean.
“It was my colleague Kirstan Schamuhn who took the initiative to look underneath a chunk of (tape) in a spot that I could not have seemed myself, to see that Main Stafford had his identify (on the again) of his collar.”
Courtesy: Galt Museum & Archives.
Courtesy: Galt Museum & Archives
“We simply didn’t anticipate finding one thing so important within the basement of the Yates theatre in 2021.”
Based on the Galt, Main Alexander Boswell Stafford was born in Nova Scotia in 1877 earlier than transferring to Lethbridge, Alta.
He enlisted within the conflict in 1915, the place he can be despatched to Europe to command the thirty ninth Battery of the Canadian Area Artillery.
“He had a enterprise right here on the town as properly, he was additionally a mason, and he was concerned in lots of actions in the neighborhood right here serving to it to develop,” defined native historian Glenn Miller.
Stafford died in Vimy Ridge in 1917, and whereas it’s unclear how his uniform ended up on the Yates, these concerned are extraordinarily happy with the discover.
{Photograph} of members of the thirty ninth Battery in entrance of the Lethbridge Exhibition Pavilion.
Courtesy: Galt Museum & Archives
“Now we have a really small assortment of Vimy materials, and so to truly get an object that’s related to the Vimy Ridge story, to construct on the gathering that we’ve got right here, was extraordinary, was exceptional,” stated MacLean.
Out of lots of of navy artifacts on the Galt, solely about 10 per cent are associated to the artillery, making this uniform further particular.
“All of the artillery from World Struggle One got here from Lethbridge, however if you take a look at the Galt assets and artifacts, it’s arduous to show,” stated Miller.
Miller encourages anybody who thinks they could have essential historic items they don’t want to preserve within the household to search out them a brand new house to assist with Remembrance.
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