Don Wilcox is a keeper of memories.
He walks around the museum he and a comrade at the local legion have carefully curated and has a story for each item.
He stops at a Merchant Marines flag carefully preserved in glass and a frame. The flag came from Jack Stapleton, who was a merchant sailor during the Second World War. He got it from one of the vessels he served aboard during the war.
Stapleton spent most of his life fighting for a pension for the Merchant Marines veterans. He pushed local politicians to take up the cause and eventually found a willing helper in MP Paul Bonwick. The former area MP brought forward a motion to give a pension to Merchant Marine veterans, which was adopted by the House and led to a pension for those sailors.
“He worked hard,” says Wilcox. “Jack kept prying and bugging.”
Stapleton’s family donated the flag and some of his medals to the Collingwood Legion Branch 63.
Wilcox and Bob Allen are the caretakers of Collingwood Legion’s museum, which is a certified member of the Ontario Museum Association.
The museum is a fair-sized room to the left of the member entrance to the legion bar. Its walls are lined with glass cases organized by a theme, there’s one dedicated to the Italian Campaign (the display is driven by educational posters made by students at Mountain View Elementary School), there’s another that displays uniforms of Canadian soldiers from past to present, another holds artifacts from the First World War.
One case is filled with model airplanes - a very popular display with younger visitors - these are set up by Bob Allen.
In fact, even the display cases are artifacts. One large hardwood-framed glass case was pulled from a Canada Mist warehouse a few years ago. The case was made in 1885 by the Hadley Planning Mills and had one of its first homes at Trott’s Furniture in Collingwood. The Wasaga Beach Woodworkers and some Comrades from Branch 63 fixed up the case, cleaned it and made some repairs, and now it holds models of Canadian tanks, and Shipyards memorabilia.
Back at the uniform display, Wilcox points out a mannequin in a navy uniform.
“That’s my cap,” says Wilcox.
He was in the Canadian Navy during peacetime. He was aboard the HMCS Lauzon - a Frigate - and later the Bonaventure - an aircraft carrier. He helped patrol Canadian water during the Cuban Missile Crisis from 1958 to 1963.
After his career in the Navy, Wilcox worked for Thomson Newspapers for 28 years starting as a sports editor at the Packet and Times in Orillia then spending time at the Barrie Examiner, the Belleville Intelligencer and the Collingwood Enterprise-Bulletin.
Shortly after he retired, he joined the Collingwood Legion and asked for something to do. They sent him to the museum and he’s been there ever since.
“I’m 77 years old, and I’m too busy to become lazy,” he exclaims.
And he means it. He’s at the museum every weekday morning, the afternoons he’s saved for his wife. He also writes a regular column for the monthly publication called The Dufflebag, a newsletter put out by Branch 63 for its 500 members. And he's the communication and PR officer for Branch 63.
Wilcox is perpetually reading and researching.
“When I came in [to the job at the museum] I thought Navy was number one,” he says. “I’m learning it took a team. It took them all so we could win the war.”
He’s created a Book of Veterans, which includes a page (or pages) for each of Collingwood’s veterans and a list of the battles they were in, their achievements during the wars, and other details about their service.
He’s filled a few shelves with three-ring binders of his own creation, each on a particular battle or event involving Collingwood troops.
He says a three-ring binder is an old-fashioned way to do it, but he likes being able to pull out the binder for visitors who want to know more.
“The idea is to remind people that Collingwood played a major role in the military history of this country,” says Wilcox. “The message has to get out. What we want to do is spread the word.”
Wilcox particularly enjoys having elementary classes come through the museum. He sets up a small (not flat-screen) television with a war documentary and prepares answers for the questions they will inevitably bring. They always ask if he fought in “the war.”
“When the kids come in, they get so excited,” he says. “It’s great.”
There are two field telephones in the museum, they sit in opposite corners and Wilcox has them working so kids can use them to talk to each other from across the museum.
A sign by the telephone explains how to use the lingo, and why a soldier would never say “over and out.”
There’s another communicator near the field telephone. This one is a Mark 19 radio used in Canadian tanks during the Second World War.
Occasionally, they were used in emergency situations in the 50s. And on one such occasion, Wilcox found himself in the middle of an exceptional tale.
It was 1954 and Hurricane Hazel had struck Southern Ontario. Those running the emergency relief effort needed someone to operate a Mark 19 to help dispatch emergency troops. Handily, 14-year-old Don Wilcox was a cadet, and had just taken a course on the Mark 19. For the next while, Wilcox did the army dispatching for the relief and rescue efforts.
The legion museum and all the memories collected by Wilcox are available for public viewing anytime the legion is open. Wilcox is there for guided tours in the mornings or by appointment.
He changes the display cases about once every six months. The case dedicated to the Italian Campaign will be switched to reflect Remembrance Day in June.
In the meantime, Wilcox continues to fill his Book of Veterans with tidbits of information he learns along the way, adding stories to the volumes and recording memories for each artifacts.
“You can’t lose your history,” he says. “You can’t lose what Canadians did to give us the freedom we have. If you forget about that, you’re in trouble. You forget about democracy.”
