While many individuals attending the Oct. 5 Dancing Under the Stars Gala did so for the purpose of raising money for Stars Air Ambulance and the Bonnyville Royal Canadian Legion, one individual traveled all the way from the United States to finally reclaim a piece of her family's history.
Penny Jensen traveled along with her husband Lee from Port Townsend, Washington to be at the event, accepting an invitation from the Bonnyville Legion, bringing an official end to a miraculous search for the rightful owner of an early 1900s Boer War medal.
According to Jensen, she received word roughly a year ago that the Bonnyville Legion was in possession of a 1901 and 1902 Queen of South Africa Boer War medal that belonged to her grandfather Bourne Frederick Lee Watson, a mounted rifle trooper in the Canadian Forces, and had been searching for the rightful owner of the medal for a number of years.
Speaking to the Nouvelle last week, Jensen stated she was still "so overwhelmed" by the entire situation and that it was hard to believe she finally had something to remember her family by.
"My husband has been practicing genealogy for some time, and I have half-heartedly tried to trace my grandparents, who lived and died in the Victoria, BC area, but I never really got anywhere with it," Jensen said. "I've always felt there was something missing, but my father was just horrible about passing along family history, so it's been very difficult for me to pursue."
She added, "But now that I finally have a piece of my family's history in my hands, it's really very overwhelming."
Jensen said the c i r c u m s t a n c e s surrounding this story are extraordinary, as one night last year she decided to log into her computer and type her grandfather's name into a "Bing search engine" which, unknowingly to her at the time, led her to finding the medal.
"After searching online, I found out that my grandfather was born in Mumbala, Australia - a small town southwest of Sydney. This website pops up and it turns out a person in Sydney, who just so happens to be my cousin three times removed, but also been doing genealogy on the family and had found some information," Jensen explained. "So I contacted him, spoke to him and found out he had found out some information about my grandfather. He told me to contact the Bonnyville Legion because they had his medal from the Boer War and were looking for his descendants to pass the medal onto."
That is where Jensen first made contact with Dan Gates, the individual in Bonnyville who had been looking for the rightful owners of the medal for the best part of a decade. After also speaking to the Nouvelle last week, Gates said the story surrounding this medal was one of the most "incredible stories" he's ever heard, as he described exactly how the medal came to be at the Legion in Bonnyville.
"About 12 years ago when I was the bar manager at the Legion, we were in our old building and had no war memorabilia or anything whatsoever on the walls and it really didn't look too much like a Legion, so we decided we were going to start collecting things and hanging them up for people to look at," Gates said. "That's when Bob Land, (a relative) of the Legion's president brought in this medal. He said his uncle found it in the garbage in Victoria in the 1950s and eventually passed it down to him.
He said since Watson's name and regiment was included on the side of the medal, he was able to go online and do some research to find out exactly who the medal belonged to. From there, he said he spent roughly ten years searching various websites and placing several ads both online and in print, trying to find the rightful owner of the medal.
"This is the first time I've ever seen or heard of anything like this happening, I mean what are the odds? How does a medal that was thrown in the garbage in Victoria end up in Bonnyville, Alberta when the guy who owned the medal didn't live anywhere near the place. It's just unbelievable."
Cathy Griffith, President of the Lakeland Friends and Stars and the individual behind organizing the Dancing Under the Stars Gala said the medal presentation, which saw several members of the local Legion march along to the tune of the bagpipes, played by Smokey Lake Legion member Milt McCrea, was a "special moment" for all those in attendance.
Jensen said she was "in awe" of the presentation at the gala, stating she had no idea such a big deal was going to be made of it.
"I couldn't quite believe it when the pipes started playing, and nobody told me the members would all be marching in like that - it was so beautiful," Jensen said. "There were two World War veterans there and the presentation was absolutely beautiful the whole way through. The men were so emotional and kind. And at the end I asked them what I could do to thank them and they replied 'Penny, the expression on your face is more than enough.' It was just a wonderful night."
Now that the medal is back in her possession, Jensen admits she feels "very protective of it", but said she has been thinking about what could happen to the medal in the future.
"I'm going to hang onto the medal for a significant period of time for right now, but I talked to Dan Gates about the possibility of perhaps donating it to the Legion museum in Victoria," Jensen said.
Following further discussion with Gates, Jensen said she's sure there are other medals of her grandfather's out there somewhere, after finding out her grandfather fought with the Canadian Forces in the first world war, possibly even taking part and fighting at Vimy Ridge. Gates said he would be contacting Veterans Affairs and seeing what medals Watson was entitled to, and ordering replacements to send out to Jensen.
Now, with the medal firmly in her hand, Jensen said she was going to contact her relative in Australia who started and planted the seed for the entire journey to let him know how everything turned out before figuring out a way to thank the Legion in Bonnyville.
"I owe them so, so much," she said.
