WWI diary returns home after 100 years
A diary containing photos that are more than 100 years old gifted to nurse will be returning to its rightful owners.
On Remembrance Day, Jon Ray will board a plane with the diary of a Belgian soldier who fought in WWI which chronicles life in the trenches from 1914 to 1917, helping it make the journey back to the soldier’s family.
The diary came to be in Ray’s collection and in his family’s possession for the last 100 years after it was gifted to one of his ancestors.
"The diary basically was gifted to my grandmother Clara - Clara Carter - right towards the end of the First World War by a French-speaking Belgian soldier by the name of Jules Geldoff," he told 9News.
While he doesn’t know how Geldoff met his grandmother, Ray’s best guess is that it was during her time as a nurse in northern England.
"We're thinking probably late '17 is probably the time he might've been injured or something's happened to him and he's obviously given it to her," he said.
At the end of the war, Geldoff and his diary would end up on opposite sides of the world.
While Geldoff became an architect, Carter married an Australian soldier, bringing the diary with her to Broken Hill in New South Wales.
Now, the diary will be heading back to its owner’s family with the help of a researcher and the Belgian embassy.
"Through assistance from a researcher in Brussels, and the Belgian embassy in Canberra, we've managed to locate his closest living relatives in a place called Muskron in Belgium," Ray said.
The diary contains priceless photographs depicting life during the war, including downtime, the war-torn towns Geldoff and his fellow soldiers encountered, and being on the front line.
Images: 9News