In 11 days time, a Telarah woman will honour her Anzac grandfather killed at Gallipoli – a man whose war service she came to know through letters published in the Maitland Mercury.
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Christine Barrett’s research – to find information about her grandfather for her mother – finally led her to the grave in Turkey of Percy John O’Brien.
He was born at Aberglasslyn, enlisted in September 1914 and was killed on June 6 the next year.
Mrs Barrett found her grandfather’s grave in the 4th Battalion Parade Ground Cemetery and she scattered a tiny sample of soil from Aberglasslyn at the site.
She brought home a sample of soil near McLaurin’s Hill where her grandfather had fallen to Telarah .
On June 6, Mrs Barrett will pay her respects to the grandfather she learned about when she takes part in a Newcastle Memorial Walk.
“I really appreciate the information published about my grandfather in the Maitland Mercury,” she said.
“Without those details, our family would not have the memories we gleaned from those stories. The most heart-wrenching letter for us was published in The Mercury on June 1, 1916, from a Corporal Frank Boland to Percy’s widow.
“He wrote: ‘I knew Percy well and he was loved by all his comrades.”’
The letter continued: “I was quite near him on the morning he was taken away from us and it caused a great gloom over us.
“We laid his body in a sheltered place behind the firing line on one of the highest points of Gallipoli and erected a nice little monument to his memory.”
Mrs Barrett said 109 were buried at the site and it was not regularly visited.
“It is a beautiful place and you can still see some of the trenches,” she said.
Mrs Barrett also found an old black and white photograph of her grandfather, from which Bolwarra portrait artist David Oberdorf - a photographer with the Mercury for 22 years - painted this colour picture.
“This research has yielded wonderful results for me,” Mrs Barrett said.