HAD it not been for Kent Mayo’s natural curiosity, a tin trunk he found secreted behind boards in a fireplace in Uralla’s oldest building may never have been discovered.
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That was in 1982 and the director of McCrossin’s Mill Museum still vividly recalls weeping over the letters written from Cecil Stoker’s mother to her son in France, dated 1916, during World War I.
“The fireplace had been closed over with timber and, being a bloke, I opened it up and discovered a tin trunk,” Mr Mayo said.
“It was all covered with soot, ash and rubbish. I pulled it out and inside that was another tin trunk in pristine condition. Inside were hundreds of artefacts relating to Cecil Stoker and his family, dating from 1880 to 1951, which is when old Mrs Stoker died and apparently hid the trunks away behind the fireplace for whatever reason.
“I went home that night and read all his personal letters to his mother, and hers to him, and cried myself to sleep. I felt like he was my little brother, it moved me so much.
“Poor Cecil only lasted three weeks in France. She kept writing to him not knowing he’d already been killed in action.”
In 1986, Mr Mayo went to Europe with his family and found Mr Stoker’s grave, and, much to his daughter’s disgust, picked a red rose from the Uralla soldier’s final resting place.
That rose, together with several more letters and artefacts from the Stoker family that have recently come to the museum, will form the centrepiece of a new exhibition, A Red Rose: Cecil Stoker’s Story.
A descendant, Barry Stoker recently presented McCrossin’s Mill with a 1915 photographic portrait in the original frame of Cecil Stoker, his birth and baptism certificates and other family memorabilia.
“Now we can go ahead and install this new exhibition,” Mr Mayo said.
“It’s unusual to find a whole collection. There were things like the contents of his pockets, a little tin box, eyewitness accounts of his death written to his mother. He was supposedly killed instantly by a German mortar bomb.”
McCrossin’s Mill collection manager Mal Boyd has been kept busy conserving, accessioning and scanning items with the assistance of 14-year-old McCrossin’s Mill member, Roy Cone.
“It’s still a mystery why Mrs Stoker boarded up that fireplace and hid away her son’s letters and belongings,” Mr Mayo said.
“Some things we’ll just never know, but we will ensure his story is told in the history of Uralla.”
