A hand-bound book containing a detailed profile of every person from Stawell who served in World War I was found in a storage cabinet beneath Stawell Secondary College.
Town resident Ian Taylor said his daughter received a phone call shortly afterwards and was asked if Robert Bruce Taylor, who was listed in the honour roll, was her grandfather.
“That’s when I had a look and I knew it was my father,” he said.
Robert Bruce Taylor was an original Gallipoli veteran and was one of four people from Stawell to be awarded with a Distinguished Conduct Medal.
He was shot in the leg in France and told his son Ian, he could have died on that day.
“He told me if it wasn’t for the cold and snow he would have hemorrhaged to death,” Mr Taylor said.
He was eventually taken to a military hospital in London.
Mr Taylor also recalled another tale of his father’s war experience on The Southland ship in the Indian Ocean.
“He sailed from Melbourne to Perth and then was sailing across the Indian Ocean on The Southland when it was torpedoed – Dad said it blew a 18-feet hole on side of the ship, but they were close enough to land to be rescued.”
Mr Bruce Taylor’s father owned a farm on Navarre Road, where the grapevines are today.
He delivered milk on a milk cart before World War I and returned to Stawell after the war.
He died in 1976 at the age of 80.
The discovered honour roll contains 19 profiles of people who served during World War I.
