A new book documents the men from the Logan area who served in World War I.
Country Boys To Country Heroes author and Logan Village resident Coralyn Cowin worked part time at the Logan Village Museum for more than 15 years, which is where her World War I research started.
In 2012, Mrs Cowin started her first project – finding soldiers who fought in WWI that were from Logan Village.
This took her about two years to complete, finishing in time for the 100-year anniversary of WWI.
Then, two years ago, the Logan City Historical Museum approached Mrs Cowin to conduct similar research, but this time to cover all of Logan City.
Mrs Cowin said first she had to to do establish where Logan was situated in the 1910s, and she took Beenleigh as the centre.
“Pimpama, Ormeau through Tamborine down to Woodhill [then] Park Ridge, Kuraby [and] the German Towns,” were the boundaries of WWI Logan, Mrs Cowin said.
She used school honour boards to find soldiers, but these had challenges to navigate.
“The names weren’t put on just after the war, some of them were put on in the 1920s by people just coming and going, ‘we think’ and some of them, the surnames were spelt wrong,” Mrs Cowin said.
She also said some soldiers were known only by their nicknames, but she loved the challenge of trying to figure out who they were.
Mrs Cowin used the Australian Virtual War Memorial to name the soldiers.
She was even able to send information she found into the War Memorial so its records could be updated.
Other resources used were the National Archives of Australia and the National Library of Australia.
Mrs Cowin said there were websites she used for the Logan Village project that were helpful but had shut down in the time between projects, which she found disappointing.
While writing this book, Mrs Cowin found gathering the information a lot easier since she had the resources from her last project.
Country Boys To Country Heroes is 800 pages long, mentioning 500 soldiers, set out alphabetically.
It features photos and lists the soldiers’ parents, partners and where they were born and died.
“I had then [gone] through their service record from when they were listed to when they were discharged,” Mrs Cowin said.
The book was published earlier this year, but Mrs Cowin is still gathering information and updating it.
Mrs Cowin had family members in WWII, and her husband is a returned Vietnam Veteran.
Logan Village RSL is holding a Vietnam Veterans service on the Tuesday, 18 August.
The commemoration service recognises those who died in the Vietnam War and starts at 11am with refreshments afterwards.
Country Boys to Country Heroes is available to buy at the Logan City Historical Museum.
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