A lost war medal belonging to a Toronto soldier killed in action during the First World War has been reunited with the soldier’s great-granddaughter after a Barrie, Ont. history teacher and his students spearheaded the search for his family.

“We really didn’t expect to see a conclusion like this, and certainly not so quickly,” said Clint Lovell, a history teacher at Barrie’s Eastview Secondary School.

Lovell reached out to the Star last month after a local rooming house owner discovered the medal of Private John Hadley, a bricklayer-turned-soldier who fought in the First World War. Hadley was killed after an enemy high explosive shell burst while he was pushing trucks in Belgium on Feb. 20, 1916.

Lovell and his students researched Hadley’s past using public records, and received more leads and possible family connections following the Star’s Nov. 7 story.

“It’s incredible when you can bring something to life, like in an inanimate object like that, you get the human story behind it,” Lovell told the Star at the time.

Their search ended up breathing life into Hadley’s story after his great-granddaughter, Patricia Pincock, heard about the search.

Pincock, of Oakville, received a call from a genealogist who told her about the medal. Lovell said a few genealogists offered their services, and a reporter at the now-defunct Barrie Examiner helped put him in touch with a genealogist on this potential lead.

She sent Lovell a 2015 photo of herself at Hadley’s grave at Ridge Wood Military Cemetery in Belgium, after Pincock’s husband discovered her family’s connection to the deceased First World War veteran.

“When I got this call, it was even more meaningful. It was a very emotional experience to go to the gravesite, and then to actually see something that he (owned),” Pincock said.

She sent Lovell the photograph to confirm the connection.

“And that pretty much sealed it for us,” he said. “She was quite thrilled to have it, and it’s so nice for us too because it’s not like you’re just tapping someone on the shoulder out of the blue who maybe isn’t terribly interested.”

“To think that she’s actually gone over and visited the grave…it really has some meaning and significance to her. And that’s just icing on the cake.”

Lovell presented the medal to Pincock in his Barrie classroom on Wednesday. Pincock, 69, is one of Hadley’s four remaining great-grandchildren. He also has eight great-great-great grandchildren.

“This medal today is something that can live forever. I’m hoping the rest of the family will be just as excited about it as I am, and that they’ll feel a connection to it,” Pincock said.

Lovell and his students are still not sure how the medal ended up in Barrie, but finding answers to questions like this have awakened a curiosity in at least five of his students, he said, who are now looking into histories and artifacts from their own families.

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Lovell hopes that this will inspire people to try digging into the history of lost historical artifacts or antiques.

“As other people see this, hopefully if someone finds something like this, rather than take it to a pawn shop, maybe they’ll take it to a history teacher.”