A STRANGE set of circumstances this week paired nurse and history enthusiast Cecille Simmons with heirlooms that had been missing from her family's collection since the death of the island's only known Boer War veteran.

The mother of United Bermuda Party MP Jamahl Simmons and wife of former Progressive Labour Party and National Liberal Party Parliamentarian Lionel Simmons, Mrs. Simmons said she was surprised last week to open the Mid-Ocean News and read that an article entitled Bermuda's Unknown Boer War Soldier was written about the accomplishments of her great-great grandfather's brother, Fred Dolan. Even more surprising was that the author of the article, historian Andrew Bermingham, had purchased her ancestor's medals at an auction held by the Bermuda Historical Society for $35, two years ago.

That discovery, Mrs. Simmons said, was the final coincidence in a series which began when she decided to do some research on the old Cottage Hospital, where many of the island's older black nurses began their training and which operated in Bermuda during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

"Back in 1991, I was asking my aunt, Thelma Packwood, about our family and she listed all the relatives for me. One of them was Fred Dolan. We realised the spelling (deviated from the usual Bermudian) Dowling, but we figured that either he couldn't spell or the name had changed over the years."

Mrs. Simmons said she recorded the information she learned that day in a notebook. When she decided to interview the most senior member of her family - Edith Ming - as part of her research into the Cottage Hospital, she took the notebook with her.

"She mentioned Fred, and said he had lived in Africa from the age of 15, but that he returned to Bermuda many years later as an adult, probably because he wanted to see home again."

Fred Dolan served in the 1899-1902 Boer War as a civilian fighting with the British forces against the Boer descendants of Dutch settlers and, for his efforts, received the Queen's South Africa Medal. He is the only Bermudian known to have fought in that bloody conflict which brought South Africa into the British Empire.

Fred Dolan later served in the British merchant marine in World War One, serving aboard convoys that were attacked by German submarines in the Atlantic, and was decorated with the 1914-1918 War Medal accompanied by the Mercantile Marine Medal. The fourth of eight children of John Thomas and Jane Dowling, by the time he returned to the island following the First World War both his parents had died.

The veteran of two wars divided his time between the family home in St. George's and his sister Blanche's home - Franklin Lodge - on Union Street in Hamilton.

"Blanche and her husband were so devoted to the Cottage Hospital. It needed money to continue running and they worked hard to raise the funds necessary to keep it alive; to keep it going. It's where (Fred) died."

The only reason the tiny Mid-Ocean News article jumped to her attention, she added, was because of the larger one above it, detailing the wreck of warship HMSEurydice after it left Bermuda in 1878 and how Dockyard convicts had travelled from Bermuda to Portsmouth, England.

"I collect Bermuda books," she explained. "One of which looks at the prisoners in Dockyard. Because (the article) mentioned Portsmouth, (where the convicts were transported from Bermuda), I read it."

No one else in her family had read the article, she said. But they were as delighted as she was when she phoned Mr. Bermingham and he offered to donate the medals to her and her family.

"We're so happy to have these."