What these medals mean

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

For years, Bert Layton and his mother, Florence, felt they were the only people in the world who remembered Frank Forsdike – and they knew next to nothing about him.

That’s about to change.

May 10, a special ceremony in Berwick will reunite the past, the present, family and history.

It’s a story dating back before the First World War, with many twists and turns.

The life of Frank Forsdike

Frank Forsdike was born in Leiston, England in 1878, the fourth child of 10 and the second son of a family that had a small pub, a farm and sent its members out to work in the town foundry. Forsdike joined the local regiment and, in 1901, traveled to South Africa for Boer War action. Injured in 1902 and discharged as a lance corporal, Forsdike went home.

With so many of them dependent on the family businesses, Forsdike, a brother and three friends left for the United States, ending up in Ontario at the Massey Ferguson plant in 1908. In 1913, on a visit to England, he married Myrtle and they had a daughter, Florence, a short time after, back in Canada.

In 1914, Forsdike lied, lowering his age from 37 to 35 to join in the first wave of First World War volunteers. Part of the 9th Mississauga Horse militia, Forsdike went overseas with the 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles. In June, 1916, while fighting with the 4th near Ypres, Belgium in the two-week Battle for Mount Sorrel, he disappeared, “missing in action.” His name is one of 54,000 Commonwealth soldiers memorialized in Mount Sorrel, all with no known grave.

Myrtle left behind

Myrtle and her daughter, Florence, were left alone in Canada. By 1920, when Forsdike’s service medals were prepared for posthumous presentation, the small family could not be found. Military contacts thought they were in South Africa, or back in England, but Myrtle had remarried in Canada when Florence was three– their new surname was Cole.

Forsdike’s mother in England refused her son’s medals; three were set in Canada’s Veterans Affairs storage, and a Silver Cross, intended for Forsdike’s mother, disappeared.

Florence never knew she had any other father but Cole: there were no pictures of Forsdike, Myrtle never mentioned him.

Missing pieces

When Florence was 18, she discovered the truth. There was one picture of Forsdike, sitting in uniform on his mount.

“My grandmother didn’t want to confuse things,” Bert suspects. “It was in the past, not to be talked about.”

In 1973, when Florence managed a trip to England, she made scant headway.

“She had a contact, but there was little encouragement to continue. People told her he’d left 50 years ago, he’d gone and died in the First World War.”

Florence came home. Myrtle died. Florence’s own children years later, Bert and two others, didn’t know any more than Florence had discovered about Forsdike.

Remembering little

Bert says Remembrance Days since have been rather odd for him and his mother.

“Once I found out, I did sit here and think, here’s a member of my family no one remembered. I always wished I’d known more.”

Remembrance Day 2007, Bert did his “annual check” in cyberspace, googling Frank Forsdike on little more than hope.

“The first hit – a whole page dedicated to my grandfather! I read the whole page, there was a picture of him I’d never seen before.”

In England, Bert’s grandfather’s brother’s great=grandson Ian Forsdike had been doing the family genealogy, and Forsdike “was just a subnote in the family,” Bert says. “Ian got interested in Frank.”

Ian knew about Myrtle, but had never been able to find any records. Her second marriage records were misspelled, he missed them and the trail ended. He talked to older relatives and community residents – finding a woman who remembered Florence’s long ago visit, but thought she’d returned to South Africa. He tracked down Forsdike’s First World War regiment and became the “unofficial historian” for the unit with the information he posted on the internet. He set up another page on Forsdike to see what would happen.

Conclusions

Bert emailed Ian immediately, and after a few exchanges they both reached for the phone. Ian came to Berwick a few weeks later to visit, and told Bert about Forsdike’s 88-year-old medals, sitting in Ottawa.

“They had to be claimed by the mother or the wife or children of the soldier – and Mom is the last living relative who can. “

Ian had tried, but couldn’t. He helped Bert and Florence, now 94, complete the paperwork just before Christmas, and they expected to wait months.

“Six weeks – they came in a bubble bag, just in a box, not mounted; with some background information,” Bert says.

He wanted to present them to his mother in some special way, so he approached the Berwick Legion, Ortona 69. The veterans and members there were of immediate assistance, and started making plans to help with a ceremony.

Bert took the medals to the aviation museum in Greenwood for mounting, and the story came out there as well.

“I told them they’d never been presented, they were going to be presented posthumously to my mother, and they said so-and-so has got to hear this.”

Bert repeated his story to 14 Wing officials, who also jumped to be involved . They tracked Forsdike’s regiment, long absorbed into the Governor General’s Horse Guard. When that unit was contacted, the commanding officer and regimental sergeant major arranged to come as well, and the CO himself will present the medals.

Ian Forsdike is planning to attend from England, Florence’s three children will be there, Bert’s son, John, a 2nd Royal Canadian Horse Artillery member, and another great-granddaughter will be among those representing the family. Air Cadets, 14 Wing band members and pipers, local dignitaries and the public are all invited to the Saturday, May 10, 2 p.m. ceremony at the Berwick Legion, with a reception to follow.

“I’ll probably be in tears,” Bert says. “Mom is delighted. There is so much material, it’s been so exciting and we had known nothing of the whole story for so long.

Florence lives at Grand View Manor, and has seen the medals and is aware of the arrangements being made for May 10. She says her mother’s silence about Forsdike all her life was a surprise, but she can understand Myrtle would have “had a hard time” as a young widow and mother.

Now, she has a new – old – picture of herself as a one-year-old, sitting on her mother’s lap with Forsdike at her shoulder.

“I take that with me from room to room – it’s special,” she says.

As Bert packs up the medals again, she says. “don’t lose them.”