AMHERST, N.S. – Several weeks ago, each of the reporters with the SaltWire Network were asked to select their top story of 2018.
It would’ve been easy to pick from the wide selection of breaking news stories that I covered over the past 12 months, but there was one story that had a happy ending that, quite honestly, I figured would be a dead-end from the moment I first put pen to paper earlier in 2018.
Still, this story touched me in a way I never thought it would, being the son of a Second World War veteran I get emotional when I think of Pte. Ronald C. McDonald.
Sandy Corbeil still has goosebumps from her visit to Amherst several months ago.
Corbeil and her sister, Carol Pereira, travelled across the country from Vancouver Island is September to take possession of a First World War Victory Medal that belonged to their grandfather, Pte. Ronald C. McDonald.
The mystery began in the 1970s when a young woman discovered the medal while snorkeling in Hawaii and was renewed earlier this year when retired Navy commander Philippe Menard and his wife were cleaning out their Ottawa house in preparation for a move. Menard sent the medal to the North Nova Scotia Highlanders Regimental Museum in Amherst in hopes of repatriating the medal with a member of McDonald’s family.
Just when it appeared the mystery might never be solved, John Wales, the assistant curator, found Corbeil and Pereira and they decided to travel to Amherst.
“I still remember when John called and asked if I knew a Ronald McDonald and I said ‘Yeah, it’s my grandfather,” Corbeil said. “I was stunned by it.”
Corbeil said she and her sister still plan to travel to northern British Columbia to show the medal to McDonald’s son, Richard, who is more than 80 years old.
McDonald served in the 25th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry. Born in Glace Bay in 1894, he enlisted in 1914. He survived the war and made his way out west to British Columbia via Manitoba and Alberta. He died in 1953.
Granddaughters of Cape Breton veteran come to Amherst to collect First World War medal
Twitter: @ADNdarrell
