ID
DEN
UNCOVERING
HIDDEN
TREASURE
Fame. “This is the same bell that rang 15
times when Chuvalo and Ali fought. No one
has ever stood that long against Ali.”
Frank Shillolo was the official bell man for
the Ontario Athletics Commission. During a
fight night in 1980, Shillolo noticed a crack
in the bell and took it home to find someone
to repair it.
“By the time he found someone, Maple
Leaf Gardens had gotten another bell,
so it becomes one of those things where
someone goes, ‘This is a piece of garbage’
and it sits in a basement.”
Many years later, Frank’s son Michael
Shillolo asked if the Sports Hall wanted the
bell for their collection, and they jumped
at the chance. At a celebration in Toronto
honouring 2014 inductees to Canada’s
Sports Hall of Fame, Deng says Chuvalo,
who at the time was 77 years old, proved
he’s still fight ready.
“Someone decided to ding it when
George was standing right beside it — and
automatically the fists came up. George is
conditioned — when that bell goes, he’s
ready. George is a history maker because no
one stood like George.”
Deng says artifacts aren’t artifacts until
you have a story attached to them, and
many stories are lost in history, with the
artifact seeming to be just another piece of
junk sitting in someone’s garage.
“So much is lost to time. When we do
have those stories, it makes it really special.
There’s so many stories that can be told
if only the objects actually had a voice.
If this little bell could say, ‘This is what I
witnessed.’”
On the seventh floor of Glenbow, one of the
floors containing the museum’s collections
materials, Travis Lutley slips on a pair of
archival gloves and picks up a slender
cigarette tin. Its exterior is dotted with rust,
but it’s in pretty good shape considering it’s
been buried in dirt for almost a century.
Lutley is a collections technician in the
Military History Department for Glenbow,
and he’s very excited about this particular
donation.
“I was contacted by a self-described relic
hunter in the UK who had come across this
object in Europe,” Lutley says.
The relic hunter found it a few years ago
— likely somewhere in France — and didn’t
keep track of where he found it, since at first
glance it was just a rusty cigarette tin.
When he got around to cleaning it in
an acid bath, he discovered this was no
ordinary relic from the past. He unearthed
a stamped inscription: 808887. J.G.
PATTISON. 50 BTL. C.E.F.
That might not mean much if you’re not
familiar with military history. What the
relic hunter knew is this inscription reveals
the name of a Canadian soldier — John
George Pattison — along with his service
number, battalion number and that he was
a part of Canada’s overseas infantry forces,
the Canadian Expeditionary Force, during
World War I.
A Google search of the soldier’s name
alerted him to the fact that Pattison’s Victoria
Cross lives at the Glenbow (the Victoria
Cross is the highest decoration for bravery
possible to receive in Commonwealth
countries with only 94 being awarded to
Canadians). He then got in touch with Lutley
and asked if they wanted the tin.
“That was
a really wild thing and
totally unexpected,” Lutley says.
“Typically we get family members donating
material to us that belonged to someone in
their fa mily.”
The donor mailed the tin on its way, and
after sitting in customs for a few agonizing
months, the package was finally in Lutley’s
hands.
“Part of the significance of this item is the
fact there are still material objects buried in
the ground that talk about our history and
are still being uncovered,” Lutley says. “It’s
an interesting link, and it’s bringing the past
back to life.”
According to the book VCs of the First
World War: Arras & Messines 1917 by Gerald
Gliddon, Pattison enlisted in May 1916 at
the age of 40. He was sent to France, and
in April 1917 his battalion was involved in
an attack. The Germans had a clear field
of fire for their machine guns. Pattison
made his way from shell hole to shell hole,
ducking fire, until he was able to fling
grenades at the German position, killing or
wounding several of the crew. He overcame
the remaining defenders, and 20 minutes
later all the enemy objectives had been
taken and the Canadians consolidated the
captured line.
Pattison was killed in a shell blast in June
1917 before he could receive his Victoria
Cross. His wife, Sophia Pattison, received
the medal in Calgary in a public ceremony.
Lutley says it’s unknown if the cigarette
tin was on him when he died or if he lost it
earlier. Since it was recently acquired the
cigarette tin is not ready to be displayed
yet, but Glenbow houses Pattison’s Victoria
Cross, British War Medal and Victory Medal
in the Warriors gallery on the fourth floor.
MAY/JUNE 2018
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