CROSSES FROM FRANCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 17 March 1925, Page 6

CROSSES FROM FRANCE.

SENT FROM SOLDIERS’ GRAVES. -ONE TO REST AT KAPONGA. Mrs E. A. Foreman, of * Ranfurly House, DanneVirke, has just received two interesting? though, melancholy, relics of the Great W ar, in the shape I of actual wooden crosses which marked | tlie resting places in, France of lier son, I and her brother, who both died of I wounds iii September, 1916 (says the - Damievirke News). The crosses are of planed wood, bearing metal plates. On the upright arm the letters G.R-.M. appearj and below on the transverse is Stamped the number, name and company of the deceased soldier, while one also bears the date of interment. The crosses are discoloured, with exposure to the weather of seven or eight years, and the foot, which is sharpened to admit of its being easily driven into the ground, bears the mark of the §oil in which it was embedded. ' Mrs Foreman proposes to place the cross of her son, fl. J. Faull, machinegunner, in the English Church at Kapoiiga-, where, he; wa?' baptised and lived. Her brother, W. A. Ford, belonged to the Auckland Infantry. Mrs Foreman, who feels that other • mothers ,mav, wish to obtain the sacred relics, states’ that she read of the possibility of obtaining them, and wrote . to the Imperial Graves Commission, V London, who forwarded a letter ot j authority to receive the cross, with instructions to communicate with tlie headuarters of the Church Army, sending £1 to cover costs. The negotiations took about twelve months, but ,at last tlie crosses', most, carefully packed, arrived, the total expense for the two ■ being just under £3.