DAVIDSON—Two British Royal Air Force First World War medals have a new home in the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion’s museum.
A British War Medal and a Victory Medal, intended for the widow of Eric Morrison, will soon be on display.
Last week former Davidson lawyer Jim Ulmer gave the medals to Gordon McRae, president of the Davidson branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. The medals will be included in the Legion’s museum that features artifacts significant to the area’s military history.
“I’m very pleased Jim has decided to give us these medals to put up in our museum at the library and hopefully I can capture some of the history they represent,” McRae said.
He said he plans to make a shadow box in which he’ll display the medals as well as including a picture of Eric Morrison and a history of Morrison and the medals.
Flight Lieut. Eric Morrison was killed Sunday, July 7, 1918 shortly after starting on a bombing raid with other members of his squadron in France, with the German lines as their objective. Lieut. Morrison was born in Scotland. Before enlisting he was employed by the T. Eaton Co. in Toronto. He left a young widow and baby boy, James, of eighteen months in Girvin, Sask. His widow was Marjorie (Murdoch) Morrison and she lived in Girvin where she likely met Eric while he was in Girvin working for the bank. She remarried in 1924 and moved away.
Ulmer has had the medals since the 1980s. He received them from his former law partner Morley Coxworth who practised law in Davidson for about 60 years. Coxworth acquired the medals in the early 1920s when the Royal Air Force sent them to the law firm Scott, McKinnon and Rutherford, for whom Coxworth began his legal career. The law firm handled Eric Morrison’s estate and the medals were sent to Davidson in 1923 to be given to Morrison’s widow, however, for some reason the task was never completed, so the medals sat in a box for more than 90 years.
“They were never opened. I always had it in mind to find the family,” Ulmer said, he now lives and practices law in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
He rediscovered them while in Davidson this summer and contacted McRae about giving the medals a proper home.
McRae said his first concern was that the medals be sent to a relative of Eric Morrison’s, however, none could be found, and so they will go to the museum.
“I feel really good about this, about where they are going,” Ulmer said.