Success! WW 1 Watch Stolen from Family 30 Years Ago Returned!

Great news - another happy ending to a search for a WW1 soldier's descendants.

The original story of a watch found by a young boy over 30 years ago is here  Chad found this watch in Michigan and wrote to Olive Tree Genealogy to ask for help finding the soldier R H Smedley's descendants so he could return the watch to the family.

With the wonderful sleuthing skills of several of my readers, the Smedley family was found. R. H. and his son are deceased but his daughter-in-law Ann and two grandsons, Ron and Jim were found.

We made contact with the family and Chad arranged to meet them personally to return the watch. The family very kindly agreed to take photographs for me to share with my readers.

The photo on the right shows Ann holding the watch which was stolen so many years ago and then found by Chad.  Her son Ron (R. H. Smedley's grandson) is in the photo along with Chad who found the watch.

Here is Chad's email about the reunion of the Smedley watch with Ronald Smedley's daughter-in-law and grandsons.

...... We met today and I passed the watch back to Ann after it had been stolen from their home some 30 yrs old. It winds up that I went to the same high school as her sons so we lived about 1.5 miles apart. Ann was gracious enough to share with me some information about RH Smedleys service, showed me a couple of pictures and showed me some of his service medals. We had a very good visit and I am just very glad that it is back with Ann and her family. Thank you very very much for your help on this and also please thank the other kind ladies that also helped. This reunion would not have been possible without everyone's hard work. Thank you again.

 This photo shows Ann and her son Jim (R. H. Smedley's grandson) with Chad and the WW1 watch.