Hello!Four years ago our museum was given a small collection of World War II-related artifacts (medals, letters, photographs and a uniform) by a daughter of their original owner. This woman has recently died and her siblings have come forward claiming that she had not been authorized by the rest of the family to donate their father’s belongings to us. She was not the executor of her father’s estate. They would like to have the medals returned to the family, as it had always been their intention to donate them to another museum.
Has anyone on the list had to deal with a situation like this? Our collections policy states that we do not return artifacts to donors (or descendents), but their acceptance had been based on the assumption that the donor had the right to donate in the first place.
We have a number of World War II medals in the collection, so returning them to the family would not impinge on the breadth of the collection, but we are concerned about the message that this might send to the community if word gets out: “If you cause a big enough fuss, they’ll give you your stuff back.”
Thanks for any insight you can offer.
Genevieve Carter
Huronia Museum
Midland, Ontario
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