“Everybody wants to find something to do with the military.”
That was a comment by Phil Dietrich, a technician at the Wellington County Museum and Archives. He had just taken a quick look at what everyone thought was a helmet, possibly one worn in the first World War.
Centre Wellington horticulturist Trevor Ashbee and his helpers Brett Johnston and Matt Quinton were digging holes to plant trees in Victoria Park in Elora last month when they found what appeared to be a military helmet.
It was encrusted in mud, but had the right shape. They brought it to the Wellington Advertiser and all three wondered if that is what it truly was. The reporter volunteered to take it to the museum to find out.
But Dietrich noted immediately it was just a little too small to be a helmet. But, encrusted with dirt, it was difficult to tell what it might be. Dietrich hazarded a guess that it might be part of an old car.
The artifact was turned over to museum staff to find out.
Staff returned it to the Advertiser last week, along with a print of an old car that they suspected might be the source of the object. It definitely was not a military helmet.
Curator Susan Dunlop said in an interview “We don’t know much more. It’s in pretty rough shape.”
How it got into Victoria Park is a mystery. Wellington Place administrator Janice Hindley suggested it might have dropped off the car’s front fender from an accident.
Or perhaps a vandal had played head lamp hockey with someone’s vehicle. Or, even more likely, it fell off a car and the owner simply tossed it into the park.
The day the head lamp was dropped off at the Advertiser, Donna Ross, of Elora, dropped in and provided another piece of metal that had been missing from the helmet. She found it in the park.
It is doubtful, though, if an entire car is buried in the rocky confines of Victoria Park, which overlooks the gorge and does not contain a lot of deep soil.
