April 2009

Contents

• April meeting and contents - page 1Introduces Glenda Miskelly’s family history talk and the museum’s Berrima internment exhibition.
• Events and meetings - page 2Describes the planned McBean presentation, a Lake Alexandra picnic and a Society luncheon.
• Museum report and exhibition opening - page 3Bob Williams reports on preparations for the Prisoners in Arcady exhibition and its February 2009 opening.
• Exhibition opening photographs - page 4Photographs identify Society members and visitors at the Berrima museum exhibition opening.
• Exhibition opening photographs continued - page 5More photographs include John Simons’s family and Stephen Dickman, who found an internee canoe in 1978.
• Reginald Richard Pitts - page 6Introduces the Mittagong-born soldier and reproduces Red Cross Wounded and Missing Bureau testimony.
• Pitts and Frank James Willis - page 7Continues Pitts family correspondence and presents Red Cross testimony about Bowral soldier Frank James Willis.
• Diary and supporters - page 8Lists Society events and newsletter supporters in 2009.

Issue highlights

• Museum curator Bob Williams describes the preview and February 2009 opening of the Prisoners in Arcady exhibition and acknowledges the volunteers who prepared it (p.3).
• Photographs identify attendees at the exhibition opening, including members, guests, the Simons family and Stephen Dickman, who discovered the internee canoe (pp.4-5).
• The issue profiles Mittagong-born Reginald Richard Pitts and reproduces Red Cross Wounded and Missing Bureau statements and his mother’s search for information (pp.6-7).
• The issue also profiles Bowral’s Frank James Willis and reproduces witness statements concerning his death near Ypres in 1917; individual testimony should be read in its context (p.7).

Original Society source