London, Ont., woman's uncle among Indigenous WW II soldiers being honoured in Dutch museum exhibit

Eighty years after her uncle Welby Patterson died on a European battlefield in the final days of the Second World War, Maidy Keir will see him being recognized at a museum exhibit in the Netherlands in a way he never really was back home.

"I think it will be very emotional. I've always been very proud of him," Keir said in her London, Ont., home, surrounded by some of the artifacts she still has from her uncle's time serving with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps.

"He was only 22 when he died. My dad came back from the war, but his brother didn't."

Keir's trip to the Freedom Museum in Groesbeek, the Netherlands, took a little bit of serendipity.

In November, Keir's daughter was Googling Patterson's name to get some information about the family hero ahead of Remembrance Day. She came across a news story about a Dutch researcher hoping to connect with family members of a number of Indigenous soldiers who helped liberate her country. Patterson's name was among them, and the family reached out.

"They are our liberators. They liberated the country that I've now been able to live in, in freedom," said Mathilde Roza, whose exhibition, called Indigenous Liberators: First Nations, Métis and Native American soldiers and the Liberation of the Netherlands WW II, will be unveiled May 1 in Groesbeek.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Dutch liberation from Nazi occupation.

"This is part of Dutch history, and Canadian history and Indigenous history. I hope that I tell the story right and that they feel a sense of recognition, that their contribution is being recognized in a way that is rewarding to them," Roza said.

Roza's exhibit presents the stories of 30 Native American, First Nations and Métis soldiers who were involved in the war efforts in the Netherlands or were ultimately buried here. Patterson is buried at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery.

She has interviewed Keir, who will bring along some of the records her family still has of Patterson's, including a telegram informing the family that he was wounded and the notice sent informing them of his death.

Nicknamed Pat because of his last name, Patterson was well liked by his fellow soldiers, and his death was "keenly felt by his comrades," his family was told.

"When Pat returned to this Unit recently following his stay in hospital and a tour of duty as an instructor in England, he volunteered to drive the Company ambulance jeep. It was his job to follow the company in action and evacuate casualties," the death notification letter reads.

"On the 14 April, 1945, the Unit put in an early morning attack on Frisoythe. Outside the town, it was necessary to cross a river but the bridge had been blown. The marching troops waded the river, but the vehicles could not cross before the engineers built a new bridge. As there were some casualties waiting to be evacuated, Pat was helping to put the bridge up; while doing this, an enemy sniper shot and killed him instantly."

Patterson was buried in a temporary cemetery before being relocated to Holten. He won a military medal for his bravery during a firefight in September 1944.

Patterson was born in Six Nations of the Grand River near Hamilton, a proud member of the Tuscarora people.

Keir grew up in Moraviantown, near Thamesville. Keir is proud Indigenous veterans are being honoured and thankful Dutch people remember them in ways Canadians are only starting to remember. "I'm very proud of my heritage.

"Welby's brothers and sisters are all gone, but there's this next generation still around and wanting to carry this on," she said.

In the Netherlands, Roza became interested in the role Indigenous soldiers played during the Second World War.

"Almost all of the soldiers that feature in the exhibit went to residential schools, and I address the history of colonization and the resilience that they had in the face of that," she said.