War Diary Izegemnaar Jules Geldhof in ‘In Flanders Fields Museum’

Unique for a WWI testimony document, the booklet is finally back home after it surfaced in Australia several years ago. An Australian family had owned the booklet all along, because it has been cherished for years by an Australian nurse. She kept it as a memento of her patient Jules and her career in the military hospital. The ball starts rolling when the nurse’s family contacts the Belgian embassy in Australia.

From Izegem to Australia

Jules served as a volunteer in the Engineers during the First World War when he was wounded in 1917 and was cared for in Birmingham by the English nurse Clara Carter. The relationship between the two remained unclear. Clara married the Australian Ernest Ray in 1919, who also stayed in the hospital in 1918. After their marriage, the couple emigrated to Australia and that is how the war diary ended up there. When the diary was recently dusted off, it received a lot of media attention in Australia. Jules’s diary testifies to a soldier who keenly observed and described the circumstances, interspersed with photographs.

Unique testimony to the Ypres Museum collection

More than 60 years after his death, the war diary brings Jules Geldhof’s family closer together again. The descendants of Jules decided to donate this unique war document and special memento of grandfather Jules to the In Flanders Fields museum. The museum speaks of a strong testimony about the life of a front soldier and a rare document about the First World War.