Millet Museum showcasing veterans with Between the Crosses

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The Millet Museum opened a new exhibit showcasing the community’s First and Second World War veterans.

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Last week, the Museum hosted the opening of Between the Crosses World War One exhibit.

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“I’m excited to share this exhibit with you all. This has been my child for the past eight, nine months,” said Museum staff member Abigail Barrie.

The Jo Moonen Memorial Veterans Wall has been a foundational part of the Millet Museum for over 20 years and was the starting point for the expanded exhibit.

“This project is an expansion of their efforts to preserve the stories and honour the sacrifices of veterans from Millet and the surrounding districts,” said Barrie.

When Barrie started on this project, she wanted to provide photographs of the veterans and insight into their stories, which led to reaching out to extended family members of the veterans to help bring their stories to life. “Combining these family memories with the newly released WWI service records, now available online, I was able to flesh out each veteran’s story beyond simply their name and rank,” she said.

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In addition to the panels showcasing each veteran, Shadow Light Productions put together a video sharing the stories of of Richard Ernest Hoskins and John Lloyd Dowdell.

In a statement, Shadow Light Productions said, “As a production company, our key directors at Shadow Light Productions, Rachel Gauk and Doug Latimer, were honoured to produce the video, Lest We Forget in collaboration with the Millet and District Museum and interviewees, and supported by the Alberta Museums Association.   We had the amazing gift of two grandsons as featured interviewees (Bill Hoskins and Eric Dowdell), the respective grandsons of WW One Veterans, Richard Ernest Hoskins and John Lloyd Dowdell.  Each contributed interviews deep in admiration, appreciation and love of their grandfathers, which resonate through the film.  We are grateful for their participation in capturing these important historical events and the understanding of their grandfathers’ and other veteran’s impressive contributions during the first world war.  We are also grateful to the Millet Museum for their ongoing and ambitious efforts to preserve and share historical stories.”

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Changes have also been made to the museum’s basement exhibits.

“We’ve swapped out a number of artifacts; the previously displayed artifacts will be taking a much need rest in our climate-controlled storage and a few will have some necessary conservation work done. Each newly displayed artifact presents an exciting opportunity to share a different facet of Millet’s history. The updated display focuses on how the people of Millet lived, from its early settlers in the late 1890s, to becoming a town in 1905, its population boom in the 1920s and how the World Wars and Great Depression shaped our town, by answering questions like; What did people eat? How did they live without electricity or running water? What did they do for fun?” said Millet Museum assistant curator Maggie Peterson.

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