Rare First World War medals find home at Galt Museum
LETHBRIDGE – The Canadian presence in the First World War included 222 Japanese-Canadians. One of them has been confirmed to have been a Lethbridge resident.
Tomomi Okutake is now being acknowledged at the Galt Museum and Archives, with the donation of his medals. The museum said while they have other examples of such medals already, this provides a rare link to the involvement of Japanese-Canadians, who have been part of the Lethbridge area since the early 1900s.
“We previously had no representation, except for one photograph, of the Japanese-Canadians’ involvement in the First World War,” collections technician Kevin MacLean said. “We knew they had come out of Lethbridge, but all we had was this one image. So, we went from one photograph to copious amounts of material, mostly in the form of documents and photographs, but also in the form of these medals and badges.”
The museum was contacted about the donation by Okutake’s daughter, Pat Sassa. She said the acknowledgement means a lot.