The box was found in the 1960s. The man who found the box was Joe Mignon, and he worked as a garbage collector. He found the antique silver box when he was out on the job one day. He said, “I thought there might be something in there, so I picked it up.”
What he found was nothing short of astonishing. Engraved at the top of the box was the name “W.A. Harvie” and inside was a collection of medals from World War I and World War II. Harvie figured that maybe someone would want the medals someday, so he kept them.
He’d forgotten about them since then, but last year, while cleaning his house, he found the box yet again. This time, instead of storing it away, he decided that he would try to find the owner. With the help of his daughter, they uploaded a picture of the box online.
His daughter, Kim Mingon-Stark, said, “He just dropped in and he said, ‘Here, take a picture and put it on Facebook.” It didn’t take much more than a few hours for the post to receive hundreds of comments. Eventually, they stumbled upon Jan MacIntyre and her two brothers, Jim and Rob Straub, who reside in Ontario.
Of course, Joe wasn’t about to give them the medals without any type of proof that they were the relatives of W.A. Harvie. Luckily, the three had proof. Jan sent Kim and Joe pictures of a silver tray, and on it was an inscription that read, “Capt. & Mrs. W.A. Harvie by the Officers of the Saskatchewan Hospital Unit, October 1916.”
Right away, Kim and Joe knew they’d found the right people. They sent the medals through the mail.
Later, they were told that the W.A. stood for two names. William Arthur, a Regina surgeon, and his son William Alexander. The medals belonged to both men, and it was crazy for everyone to know they’d been found.
Jan said, “I was blown away because it was so long ago and then to try and find us is really amazing.” Jim was touched too, that they’d found his grandfather’s medals. He shared, “There was never much from our grandfather except we knew he grew up in Orillia. It’s really nice to have something tangible to hold that belongs to him.”
If you’d like to hear more about this amazing story, watch the video below!
