MEMBERS of the Myrtleford RSL have recovered troves of missing information on 25 local life members to create a remarkable display that was open to the public from Monday to Wednesday last week.
After the Myrtleford RSL put the call out to passed servicemen and women's relatives in recent months, affiliate members Chris McCracken and Deb Blackburn have been busy piecing their histories together for the showcase.
"We're absolutely proud of the display we've assembled," said Ms McCracken.
"We're very grateful to the families for helping us put it together by loaning us their relatives' documents, medals, letters and so forth.
"We just enjoy accessioning and recording everything that is brought to the RSL."
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"We have found some quirky anecdotes and stories about various life members throughout this process," Ms Blackburn said.
"The other interesting thing for me was to find out what the RSL did in days gone by.
"It wasn't just a Friday meet-up, like we do in honour of the war dead; they were fundraisers in the town.
"They held gymkhanas, boxing matches, rodeos and they did an enormous amount of fundraising for the hospital.
"Most of the activities they did would've been to engage the returned soldiers, to give them something to do."
The culmination of the life members' commemoration occurred when the display was taken down and stored away to make room for the RSL to host approximately 100 of the life members' relatives in the main hall last Thursday evening.
"The first task was to find the families," Ms McCracken said.
"That was the RSL's goal for the past few months, to reach out to as many life member relatives as possible.
"This process has really taught us that we should keep track of people and keep those stories of life members alive.
"Why were they given that award?
"When an RSL branch requests that someone become a life member, that request goes to Melbourne and the general membership does not see the citation and it's not recorded here.
"We can't just go to a file and see why they became a life member.
"After this display comes down, we will keep searching and adding to our local servicemen and women's history.
"It's a very rewarding thing to do; to get their names back into recognition instead of them fading into obscurity after their service.
"There are all these people that we will know more about now because of this project."
