Thought lost, then found in pieces in a creek bed years later, an honour roll listing the names of 28 World War I service men is returning home.
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Made up of four pieces of silk paper, the 'East Shelbourne State School Roll of Honor' has been brought back to life following an extensive restoration effort and community campaign.
"This is a document that allows the future to know a part of where they came from," East Shelbourne Recreation Reserve Management Committee secretary, Chris Johnson, said.
Ms Johnson, who lead the restoration campaign, said the roll had outlasted its namesake with the school now reduced to a stone and a memorial plaque following its closure in 1970.
It was around that time the roll went missing, she said.
"I think there was an assumption that the Department of Education would move the roll to the school at Lockwood ... but that did not happen," Ms Johnson said.
'It needs to be returned to the community'
It was not until the late 1980s when farmer George Leversha found the roll in pieces, among the soil and sticks of central Victoria's Spring Creek.
"For an honour board to be thrown into a creek, disrespected ... it was the saddest story I had heard," Ms Johnson said.
"And I thought ... it needs to be returned to the community."
Norm Robert's grandfather Frederick was one of the 28 names concealed in the roll's wooden frame, having grown up "an hour by horse" from the site of the school.
"Fred enlisted when he was 23 and went to war before he came back and settled here ... he died when I was in my 20s," Mr Roberts said.
Mr Roberts said the restoration of the honour roll felt like a homecoming for Frederick.
"I always feel connected to him, but it this rekindles that love for family in midst of all that for me," he said.
Four mothers
Having the roll as a conduit for the descendants of the servicemen, allowing them to be connected to their family, was central to Ms Johnson and her committee's campaign.
Ms Johnson also said it helped her to feel connected to those families.
"In my family, five generations of mothers sent sons to war," she said.
"As time goes on and I reflect on it more in my own life, I know there are four mothers represented behind [the roll] that are experiencing what I am experiencing and you think .... it should always be honoured."
For some of those mothers, the honour roll was the closest thing they had to a gravesite.
"Of the nine [on the roll] killed, three of them have unknown graves .... their names are written on walls overseas. Their family has no gravesite to go to," Ms Johnson said.
"In the local school, that's the only place their names would be seen for those mothers.
"So healing comes into it too."
The honour roll will be unveiled at East Shelbourne Recreation Reserve on Sunday, March 3 before travelling to its new home at the Kangaroo Flat RSL Sub-branch, which had also funded the restoration.
A replica of the roll will remain in the Reserve Hall, where the original school was located.
