Cape Breton woman finds her great-uncle’s lost WWII medals in time for Remembrance Day

A Port Hawkesbury woman has long imagined a Remembrance Day with her great-uncle’s war medals.

This will happen this year for the first time thanks to some research and the kindness of his great-uncle’s host family.

As a child, Angel Scott-Skinner was intrigued by a photograph of a young man that her grandmother kept on a table in her living room in Hadleyville, Nova Scotia. She wondered who he was.

When she asked about it, her grandmother, Lilian Hadley McKay, told her it was a photo of her brother, Douglas Albert Hadley, who was killed in World War II.

As the years went by, Scott-Skinner thought more and more about his great-uncle each Memorial Day. She wanted to know as much as possible about the young man who was killed just before his 24th birthday.

“I started digging into what I could find out about him because he wasn’t married and didn’t have kids or anything,” she said. “I was just curious, very curious.”

She said she knew Douglas and his four siblings were born in Dominion, Cape Breton. His parents had settled there after moving from Oyster Pond in Guysborough County.

The children were orphaned at a very young age, separated and raised by different foster families.

Wanting to honor his memory, Angel contacted Veterans Affairs Canada, in the hopes that they could reissue his medals. However, as she was not a direct descendant, her request was denied.

Undeterred, Scott-Skinner turned to Facebook, where someone sent him a military document showing his medals had been given to his adoptive mother, Bertha Seaman of Pictou County. He had listed her as his next of kin.

One of Scott-Skinner’s friends, Chris Cook, president of the Guysborough Historical Society, gave him some advice on where to look. She found the numbers of people with the last name Seaman in Pictou County.

This spring, she called one of the numbers and contacted John Douglas Seaman, the son of Bertha and George Seaman.

“At first I thought they might think it was a scam or something, but I had a very pleasant conversation and they said they still had the medals because his mother, Bertha, kept everything,” Scott-Skinner said.

“She thought very highly of Douglas, talked about him all the time and he was named after her.”

Scott-Skinner arranged a meeting and went to visit the family.

She received medals, photos and a small Bible that belonged to her great-uncle.

“They gave me everything,” she said. “I was overwhelmed by their kindness in doing this.”

Scott-Skinner’s Facebook post asking for help finding his great-uncle’s medals also caught the attention of Bruce MacDonald, an amateur Salmon River historian.

MacDonald is researching the history of Guysborough County military personnel who served in World War I and World War II.

MacDonald’s role in this trip was crucial, provide historical context and help Angel identify the five medals Douglas had earned – several service stars and a volunteer medal – still in their original boxes.

According to MacDonald, Douglas enlisted in May 1941 and eventually served with the Cape Breton Highlanders in Italy in 1944.

In September of that year, while positioned in the Rubicone Valley, the unit suffered 352 casualties, according to MacDonald, including 52 killed.

On September 28, 1944 alone, 10 soldiers of the Cape Breton HIghlanders were killed, according to Commonwealth Graves Commission records. Douglas Albert Hadley was one of them.

“We tend to forget that at the same time these soldiers were fighting in Normandy, then in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands, other Canadians were fighting in northern Italy, as in the Douglas case,” MacDonald said.

“Often I think the veterans of the Italian campaign are overlooked and sometimes I think they are not given the attention they deserve for their service.”

MacDonald said it was the perfect time for Scott-Skinner to get Douglas’ medals and learn more about his history in time for Remembrance Day.

Scott-Skinner has never visited Douglas’ grave in Cesena, Italy, but it’s something she would like to do.

“It would be really nice one day if I could do that,” she said. “But it’s a big dream.”