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Poland man to receive his grandfather's WWI Canadian Army medals
YOUNGSTOWN
Mission accomplished. The World War I Canadian Army medals of John B. Stapleton, which surfaced in Nova Scotia a century after he earned them, have found a home with Stapleton’s only grandchild, Edvin John Lind of Poland.
It was the wish of Canadian Air Force veteran Joseph Maurice “Moe” MacIsaac of Marion Bridge, Nova Scotia, that the medals — which came into his possession through his hobby of frequenting yard sales and flea markets — be given to a direct descendant of John and Dora McKay Stapleton.
John and Dora lived much of their lives on Albert Street in Youngstown.
In March, he learned a woman in a thrift store had found the medals under a plate she was considering buying in a thrift store.
When he saw the medals, MacIsaac said he knew they were real and in unusually good condition, indicating to him they had been looked after until recently. He acquired the medals for a $20 donation, determined to give them back to a direct descendant.
Stapleton’s name and rank were on the back of the medals; but while there are many Stapletons in the area where he lives, MacIsaac was unable to find a direct descendant of John and Dora in Novia Scotia.
He enlisted the help of a computer-savvy friend, Mary Steele of Nova Scotia, and the electronic trail led them to Youngstown and to The Vindicator.
A story published Nov. 30 about their search produced several responses via telephone and an email, which led to Lind.
MacIsaac said he was “flabbergasted and excited” upon learning that Lind had been found.
Lind, son of Mary Stapleton Lind, daughter of John and Dora, remembers going back to Novia Scotia as a child with his mother to visit family.
Lind also recalls John and Dora, who lived on Albert Street in Youngstown.
He said John, who stayed at his house a few times, was stoic.
“He didn’t talk a whole lot about the war,” Lind said.
John and Dora did not have a car and used the bus to go shopping and anywhere else they needed to go.
“The thing [John] liked most was going down to the local veterans ‘watering hole’ and drinking beer,” Lind said.
According to his obituary in The Vindicator, John was 84 when he died of a stroke March 23, 1976. He was a retired employee of the Raymond Concrete Pile Co. where he had worked 33 years and was a member of Tabernacle United Presbyterian Church.
Besides his wife, he left a son, James Byron (Barney) Stapleton, a Marine Corps veteran who died in 1978 and is buried with his parents in Tod Homestead Cemetery in Youngstown. A daughter, Sue, still lives in Youngstown.
The medals that Stapleton won while serving in the 40th and 80th battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force attached to the British Army during World War I in Europe are the British War Medal, Victory Medal and 1914-15 Bronze Star.
Lind and his wife, Ann West Lind, went to nursing school together at the St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing in New Castle, Pa.
Ann has worked in the past at St. Elizabeth Hospital, the Ohio Heart Institute, and last at Forum Health at Home. Lind is a nurse anesthetist at the Orthopedic Surgery Center at Beeghly Medical Park in Boardman.
The Linds have two children: Megan Zimmers of Poland and David M. Lind of Struthers; and three grandchildren.
In their home, they have a glass-topped table containing memorabilia of his father, Edvin A. Lind, who was decorated with three Purple Hearts while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II in Africa and Italy.
It also displays memorabilia of his grandfather, John, including several decorative postcards sent to Miss Dora McKay, Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, N.S., before John and Dora were married.
One of the cards, with “Greetings from France” on the front, had this simple message on the back: “Tho far apart and seas divide, my love I always think of thee. Yours, with love.”
The Linds have contacted MacIsaac to thank him for preserving the medals and for his kindness in seeking them out.
“I will be glad to accept John’s medals and find a place of honor for them with my father’s decorations,” Lind said.
The exchange is expected to occur early in 2015.
“Fantastic,” said MacIsaac.
“I think this is where the medals should go,” he said.