Val Heffernan wants to reunite a certificate presented to a Ballarat digger’s family with his living relatives after she found the 100-year-old document hidden behind a photo frame recently.

Ms Heffernan was going through the belongings of her mother June Ashmore, who died three years ago, when she stumbled across the certificate hidden between two pieces of cardboard and stashed behind photos of Mrs Ashmore’s grandchildren.

The certificate was awarded to the family of Corporal William John Kisler, who was killed in 1918, just before the end of World War I.

The former postman has no connection to Ms Heffernan’s family, so she is turning to the community for help to return the A3-sized certificate to the soldier’s relatives.

“While my mother died in 2013, it was only recently I was going through boxes and boxes of photos which came out of her house,” Ms Heffernan said.

“I was removing family photographs from a frame, which had been on my mother’s wall for about 30 or 40 years, when I realised something was hiding between two pieces of cardboard at the rear of it.”

The certificate features green laurel leaves, the years 1914-18, the colours of the 39^th Battalion and the words “A man went forth from this house”. Also discovered with the certificate was a postcard photo of Corporal Kisler with the words “to Lil, from Will”. 

Copies of the certificate were sent to the Ballarat RSL and other prominent war historians, who described the document as “rare”.

“I don’t know how the certificate came to be behind the photo frame or how it came into our family … because Corporal Kisler has no association with us … that I know of,” Ms Heffernan said.

Curiosity got the better of Ms Heffernan, who turned to an internet family tree site for information about Corporal Kisler.

She discovered the Golden Point Primary School pupil enlisted in the Australian Army with the 39^th Battalion and rose to the rank of corporal. He was killed on August 31, 1918, at Mont Saint Quentin, in France, at the age of 25 years, 11 months and two weeks.

Also discovered was his parents’ names of Peter Kisler (father), Emily (nee Thomas) Kisler (mother) and the names of his eight siblings, Henrietta, Martha, Emily, Anne Louisa, Fredda Minnie, Vic, Ivy Lillian and Stanley Peter. Research also showed the Kisler family home was on Geelong Road, Ballarat East.

Anyone with information can phone Ms Heffernan on 0438 394341.