After a public appeal from the restorers of the Coopernook War Memorial near Taree in NSW, the mystery wording on one of the plaques has been solved.
Work started on the restoration of the 100 year old sandstone obelisk memorial in June, but mystery surrounded a missing small marble plaque on the memorial, with the wording unable to be read.
It was one of several plaques honouring those who served in Boer War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Malaya-Borneo, Vietnam and all other conflicts.
MidCoast Council issued an appeal for anyone who knew the history of the plaque to come forward.
It took two intrepid investigators to solve the mystery. Stonemason, Ken Ellis, cleaned up the plaque and took an etching of it, while Sharon Knight – a local resident and member of the adjoining Coopernook Memorial Hall Committee – investigated the wording.
Together they worked through a process of elimination. After recognising the last few letters, it didn’t take long to recognise the words to be ‘EDSTEIN & SONS’ – the business name of local stone masons who had worked on many of the war memorials across the MidCoast.
“We are very thankful to Sharon and Ken for taking the time to work through letter options to solve the mystery. The lead lettering has now been restored and is clearly visible on the memorial once more,” said Council’s Executive Manager Community Spaces, Dan Aldridge.
Unfortunately, the work on the memorial has been halted just short of completion. The stone mason resides in Sydney and due to COVID-19 restrictions is unable to return to complete the work.
Once restrictions ease, the stone mason will return to complete a few lead letters, give the old memorial a final clean and apply a treatment.
The works are being funded by the NSW Government, and follow restoration works undertaken on war memorials over the last few years in Nabiac, Taree and Wingham.
