{"id":10439,"date":"2012-03-11T01:29:51","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T01:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=10439"},"modified":"2012-03-11T01:29:51","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T01:29:51","slug":"vale-jean-letaille-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/?p=10439","title":{"rendered":"VALE – Jean Letaille AM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Jean Letaille AM
\n\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

On behalf of the committee and members of Families and Friends of the First AIF I express condolences to the family and friends on the sudden passing of\u00a0Jean Letaille.<\/p>\n

We are informed that Jean passed away on Saturday, 10 March 2012. He had been in poor health for considerable time but his sudden death came as a shock to us all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A former Mayor of Bullecourt, Jean and his late wife, Denise, were pillars of the Bullecourt community. Over decades, Jean had unearthed and collected machinery, weapons and other artefacts from the First World War battlefields around the area and displayed them, initially in the town hall and afterwards, as the collection outgrew that accommodation, in buildings on his property.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A visit to the \u2018barn\u2019 or the museum was a \u2018must\u2019 on any Aussie\u2019s pilgrimage to that part of the Western Front and Jean and Denise were perfect hosts. They have generated many fond memories for hundreds, if not thousands, over the years.
\nIn addition to the museum, his contribution to Digger Heritage through the donation of land for the Memorial Park where the \u2018Young Digger\u2019 stands, his involvement in the construction of the \u2018Slouch Hat\u2019 Memorial and the private \u2018Cross\u2019 Memorial on the Bullecourt battlefield, his participation in countless memorial services and the assistance he provided to battlefield pilgrims is immeasurable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Both Jean and Denise Letaille were appointed Members of the Order of Australia in 1997 for service to Australian-French relations.<\/p>\n

Jean\u2019s loss to the Bullecourt community is considerable and he leaves, as a major part of his legacy, a newly refurbished museum which is due to open its doors for the first time on Anzac Day this year. It\u2019s sad that he will not be there to see his collection open to the public once more.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Jean Letaille proudly shows the plans of the new Bullecourt Musem to a member of the FFFAIF’s Tour group in 2010.<\/h6>\n

Our thoughts at this sad time are with Jean\u2019s family, his friends and members of the Bullecourt Museum Association who worked closely with Jean and the Australian Government on the museum\u2019s re-development as part of the Australian Remembrance Trail along the Western Front.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Photo: Jean Letaille, July 2011.<\/h6>\n

He has joined his beloved Denise. May they Rest in Peace.<\/p>\n

Russell Curley
\nPresident
\nFamilies and Friends of the First AIF.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Jean Letaille AM On behalf of the committee and members of Families and Friends of the First AIF I express condolences to the family and friends on the sudden passing of\u00a0Jean Letaille. We are informed that Jean passed away on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bullecourt","category-commemorations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fffaif.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}