WWI trio - PTE GEM Woods

It has been almost a month since the last blog post about a successful return. I haven't been sitting idle and I'm on the brink of several search conclusions. I just need that last piece of information that will let me work out who to contact and return some medals to. 

The final piece of information to contact a relative of 137 Private George Ernest Martin Woods was the hardest piece of this puzzle and the story behind that is almost as intriguing and the story behind the medals. 

I received the WWI trio awarded to George from a colleague of mine in Army Headquarters. Dr Arron P gave me the medals on 14 December 2021 with the following explanation. A contact of his had found the medals in a wall cavity of a house in Dudley St, Asquith, NSW. How long the medals had been hidden away is a mystery. However, a letter in George's service record started to put the pieces of the puzzle together.   

George's service record is 81 pages and gives considerable detail of what he was up when he served in the 1st Field Company Engineers. This included being wounded and being charged for missing Tattoo. After George returned to Australia he married Mona Drybrough in 1919. Following George through the electoral rolls was quite easy until he died in 1957. His death notice gave me the first names of his children and grand children. All this took about 40 minutes to work out but it was a letter from 1967 applying for the Anzac medallion sent by George's daughter, Edna Jean Kenway, that was the real clue I was looking for. I had a surname to work with.

As it turned out Edna went by her middle name, Jean. I found quite a bit of detail about Jean as a bush walker and member of the Batemans Bay Bushwalkers Club. I sent an enquiry to the club secretary who kindly provided me some additional information. Firstly, the sad news was that Jean had died in recent years but I also received a clue as to the geographic location of where on of Jean's daughters lives. Unfortunately, I couldn't make contact, so I went back to the research.

It was Jean's bushwalking adventures which gave me the next clue. I found a newspaper story on Trove about Jean which named her daughter as Jenny Fuller. And to my surprise, Jenny lived, at the time, in Canberra.

I worked out that Jenny was married to Peter but their current address eluded me. I lost several days trying to chase them down until social media came to the rescue. The next surprise was it appeared Jenny and Peter had moved to WA. I sent them a message but didn't receive a response which didn't really surprise me. A review of Jenny's profile relieved that Jenny and I have a mutual contact. My friend Imelda came to the rescue and through her friend Teresa my contact details were passed to Jenny. Within an hour I was talking to Jenny. She no longer lives in WA but closer to me in NSW and we have made arrangements to met in the near future so that George's medals can be returned.

The returned medal tally is now 2682. This search couldn't have been completed without great help from Karen, Teresa and my dear friend Imelda.