Embroidered handkerchief : Private E D Hood, 29 Battalion, AIF

Cream cotton crepe handkerchief. The square central panel is embroidered in silk floss with three pansies in purple, cream and green, with 'Remember me' , in red, beneath them. The panel is edged with blue/green machine embroidered chainstitch. A band of cream machine-made lace separates the central panel from the outer silk square of the handkerchief, which is also edged wit the same lace. Each side of the outer square is edged with blue/green machine embroidered chainstitch and the centre bears a scroll pattern in the same colour.

This souvenir handkerchief was sent home to Australia to his wife, Phoebe, by Edward Duncan Hood before he was killed in action at Flers, on the Somme in France, on 25 October 1916. Hood was born at Carrum, Victoria, in 1891, and was working as a labourer at Mannnerim, near Queenscliff, before joining the AIF. A married man with three young children, he nevertheless enlisted in January 1916, becoming Private 2661, a member of the 5th Reinforcements to 29 Infantry Battalion. He sailed from Australia in April 1916 and joined his unit in France in August of the same year. Only two months later he was killed, probably by shellfire near the ruined town of Gueudecourt, during the preparation for an attack by the 5th Australian Division on the enemy trench system in front of le Transloy. Edward Hood is buried at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, about 4 kilometres south west of the area where he was killed.