Lana Harrison’s collection of old atlases has been growing for years.
Visiting used bookshops in British Columbia, the 77-year-old assembled a large stack, with plans of taking the atlases with her to Kenya, donating them to local schools.
The books sat for years until one day, the Surrey, B.C., woman found something wedged inside one of the atlas’ pages – a black-and-white class photograph taken in April 1942, on the steps of Western’s Physics and Astronomy building.
“I’ve collected them and had them for a while, maybe five years. I looked through them, looked at the dates and there was this picture in one of them, and I turned it over, and there were names,” Harrison said.
“Whoever had that picture, they turned it over on the back, and wrote the names and where (the person) was from. Every once in a while, they didn’t remember the person’s name and they drew a blank space, but most of the names are there. I thought there must be somebody out there dying to get their hands on that picture.”
At the bottom of the photo, the print reads, “No. 2 course radio technicians at The University of Western Ontario, F./O.R.W. Barton, Commanding Officer, April 1942.”
Harrison contacted the Surrey Leader, asking them to run the photo, hoping to reunite it with its original owner or a living relative. So far, no such luck.
“It hit me that somebody must be out there that would want that picture. I realize the (owner) might be gone, but they have sons and daughters,” she said.
The back of the photograph, where names and hometowns are written, indicates the men are from all over Canada. Harrison said she wishes the original owner had, among the list on the back, indicated where he stood in the crowd.
“I wish he would have written down ‘Me,’” she said.
“It’s unusual for a man – women do this (record keeping). Unless his wife did it,” Harrison laughed. “Women are much better at that. Whoever did it had neat, clear handwriting. It could have been his wife, or one of these guys who had nice handwriting,” she said.
Harrison has just returned from East Africa, where she went on a trip she said was part mission work, part time to see family, a Kenyan family she has grown close to, calling them her son, daughter and grandchildren.
She remembers the Second World War, and has always had an interest in the conflict, especially because her late husband was in the Air Force. It’s another reason she felt particularly drawn to the photograph, seeing men who served at the time.
“There was so many things that I do remember. I was young, but I was aware of what was going on; I remember being on ration books,” she said.
Harrison plans to contact the Canadian War Brides of World War Two and perhaps a museum or two, in hopes of someone finding a connection, friend or family member in the old photograph.