23 December 2017

Jack Kiley

Some searchers just have me scratching my head as to how the medals went missing in the first place. This is one such case and I think that just having a successful solution is the best answer.
Pauline C recently emailed and told me that a friend recently moved from Townsville and when she was unpacking the removal boxes she found boxes that weren't hers. In one of these mystery boxes was the WWII medals awarded to NX97322 Jack Kiley. There was no response from the removal company so Pauline asked me to help.
The information I found about Jack was pretty sparse so I had to relay on the name of his neck of kin, Clementine Munro. From the 1949 electoral roll I found the name of the property that Jack was living at and this lined up with where Clementine lived. I had narrowed down the geographic location for Jack but in the 1970s and 180s he was living on his own in the NSW town of Moree. I could find no evidence that he married.
I then stumbled across this story about the Rotary Club of Moree chipping in to pay for a plaque for Jack after he died in 2003. The plaque also gives his real date of birth as 1928 meaning that he was 14 when he enlisted in 1942 not 20.
Pauline told me that in the mystery box was a prescription so she gave me the name on that. The first name was Karen. I found this person also living in Moree in the 1970 so I took a punt that there was a link with Jack. I found reference to Karen leaving a local business in 2013. These were all very thin links but I provided Pauline the company name and today she told me she was able to contact Karen. Also some blanks were filled in:
'It turns out that Jack was an orphan and was taken in by Karen’s family when he was very young. He lived with them and then joined the army. When he finished his tours he came back home and Karen said he was a regular at Sunday lunches. She still they were fantastic friends and he had left his medals to her family and they ended up with Karen. She was very excited that I called.'
How the boxes were mixed up in the removal is what has me scratching my head but I'm not going to give it another thought.
The medal returned tally is now 2184.

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