WWII Dog Tag Finally Returns to Family: Orphaned Heirloom Rescue

by | Mar 11, 2015 | 01 What's New, Heirloom, Inspiration, Volunteer

A 22-year year old man with a metal detector in France has brought a lot of joy to an 89-year widow in the U.S.

As reported in TheBlaze.com, Francois Blaizot found an American’s World War II dog tag in Normandy last year. Instead of keeping or selling it, he decided to try to reunite it with the soldier’s family. It took help from a local veteran’s affairs office for Francois to connect with the soldier’s widow, Catherine Wallace of Indianapolis, Indiana, US.

Francois sent a letter along with the dog tag to express his appreciation for U.S. military assistance to his country during World War II. As it turns out, the soldier did survive the war and continued home to serve his community as a firefighter. He passed away in 1997.

I don’t usually read the comments section of news article posts, but there are some nice responses to this article. I particularly like this one: “Man, talk about heart warming. We need more stories like this. And more metal detectors. LOL.”

Watch the story:

Did you know that there’s someone in our genealogy community who has made dog tag rescues her special priority? Lorine McGinnes Schulze of The Olive Tree Genealogy Blog coordinates efforts with volunteers who read her site postings and help her reunite these military artifacts with families. Click on the link to her blog to see a list of SOLVED cases along with OPEN cases that you could maybe help solve!

We hear about orphaned heirloom rescues from time to time and I never get tired of them! Read more stories like this one by going to the Genealogy Gems home page and searching (on the lower left) under the category “heirloom.” If you’ve found an heirloom from someone else’s family, check out this post with advice on how to track down living relatives.