True Love Finds a Way - Sweethearts Reunite after 72 Years Apart

True love finds a way.

Norwood Thomas was a 21-year-old paratrooper when he met 17-year-old British girl Joyce Morris in London just before D-Day. They dated for a few months before the war intervened and saw Mr Thomas sent to Normandy.

After the war ended, Norwood went back to America, and settled in Virginia Beach, while Joyce ended up in Australia. They lost touch until recently.

Yesterday they reunited in Australia, courtesy of first-class tickets from Air New Zealand, and donations from complete strangers.  

Read the heart-warming story of 93 year old Norwood  and 88 year old Joyce  at Wartime Sweethearts Reunite after 72 years apart

Who is the Man from the Suitcase?

Recently I stumbled on a fascinating website. I love how events unfolded. An Instagram user called ManFromTheSuitcase gave one of my Instagram photos a heart. I like to see the photos of anyone who likes one of mine, and the name intrigued me so off I went to his/her profile page. 

A brief note on the page read "Years ago I purchased a suitcase for $10.00 Inside was a large collection of artifacts from one man's life. Who is the man from the suitcase?"

I was hooked! The website URL was there so of course I clicked on it. This is what I saw on the landing page:

"Many years ago, I bought a suitcase at an antique mall for $10.  Inside the case was a large collection of letters, poems, photos, negatives and artifacts from one man’s life…much of which centered around his service in the Armed Forces during the 1940’s.

 I hoarded these artifacts for the next 10 years, occasionally bringing them up for air on slow afternoons.

Having buried this man’s story for 10 years, it’s about time for him to be let out of his silk-lined case.  Hopefully, he will be reunited with whoever is missing him.

I am about to embark on a treasure hunt to find an answer to the question:
Who is the man from the suitcase?"

The suitcase apparently contained over 300 medium format negatives and several developed rolls of 35mm film. There are family photos, pictures of dogs who were presumably family pets, and photos of Paris in the 1940s.  

Such a fascinating story!  Read more and see the photos and join the hunt at The Man From the Suitcase

Of course I did more research using information found on The Man From the Suitcase but I am not publishing it here. I contacted the person who owns the suitcase through Twitter and do not want to spoil his/her telling of the story and his/her findings. Here is a very small bit - a teaser - of what I found about the man from the suitcase.

Source: SSDI (Social Security Death Index)

Name: John P. Jones
SSN: 409-44-2303
Last Residence: 37215 Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee, USA
BORN: 9 Oct 1912
Died: 30 Mar 1995
State (Year) SSN issued: Tennessee (Before 1951)

Source: U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

Name: John P Jones
Birth Year: 1912
Race: White, citizen (White)
Nativity State or Country: Michigan
State of Residence: Tennessee, Conscientious Objector
County or City: Davidson
Enlistment Date: 29 Jul 1943
Enlistment State: Georgia Enlistment City: Fort Oglethorpe
Grade: Private
Civil Life Education: 4 years of college
Civil Occupation: Managers and officials, n.e.c.
Marital Status: Married

Source: U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007
Name:     John Paul Jones
[John P Jones]
SSN:     409442303
Gender:     Male
Race:     White
Birth Date:     9 Oct 1912
Birth Place:     Cedar Springs, Michigan
[Cedar Spring]
Father Name:     John K Jones
Mother Name:     Vesta I Covert
Death Date:     30 Mar 1995
Type of Claim:     Original SSN.
Notes:     Apr 1946: Name listed as JOHN PAUL JONES; 06 Apr 1995: Name listed as JOHN P JONES

Image Credit: https://www.instagram.com/manfromthesuitcase/ 

Earl G. Gregory's WW2 Navy ID Tags Need to Go Home (Case #24)

Sue wrote to Olive Tree Genealogy with a request for help sending a WW2 Navy ID Tag back to family

I would like to find a home for the attached dog tag.  My father ran a wrecker service in DeKalb, Illinois and found this in a car many years ago.  It is for Earl George Gregory.

After receiving Sue's email I did some research. The first thing I noticed was that this was a Navy ID Tag (USN on the tag)

A search on Ancestry.com found this record for Earl:

Earl George Gregory
Service Info.: CWT US NAVY WORLD WAR II
Birth Date:18 Dec 1916
Death Date:11 Jun 1990
Cemetery:Thomason Cemetery
Cemetery Address:Main St Wayne City, IL 62895

Find-A-Grave shows his wife as Anna, buried with him.

If you can help find Earl's family, we can add this to our solved cases with a happy ending. There is probably a family member who would treasure this item, let's help find Earl's family and send it home.  

Can We Send Leroy Tillery's US WWII Dog Tag Home? (Case #23)

Olive Tree Genealogy received a request for help finding family of Leroy Tillery whose US WWII ID Tag (Dog Tag) on the estate at Dorford Hall, Near Nantwich, Cheshire England. The finder of the Dog Tag and the Secretary of the Crewe & Nantwich Metal Detecting Society are hopeful my amazing readers will be able to find Leroy's descendants or family members. 

Mr. Bradley, Membership Secretary informs me that his research indicates that Dorfold Hall was used as a WWII US Army camp to house the 158th Liaison Squadron(camp capacity 170 personnel) in the 1940's. He requests our help to help send Leroy's Dog Tag home. 

After receiving the email, I searched NARA's Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records) using the serial number 34669274 on the Dog Tag. Here is the information found for Leroy:


Leroy Tillery, Army Serial Number 34669274, lived in Nash County North Carolina and enlisted at Ft. Bragg on 30 November 1945. His year of birth was 1924. He was an African American and his marital status was given as "single with dependants"

If you would like to help send Leroy Tillery's Dog Tag home, please leave your findings in the comment section of this blog post unless it is about living individuals. For information concerning living people, please write to me privately at olivetreegenealogy AT gmail DOT com (replacing AT and DOT with the appropriate characters) 
 

Help Return WW2 Soldier Edwin Manktelow Dog Tag - Case #22

Steve is asking for help finding a WW2 soldier or his family. Here's his email to Olive Tree Genealogy:

While out with my metal detector here in England yesterday I found my first American dog tag, although it is in 3 pieces it very clearly reads

EDWIN MANKTELOW
32585923   T43
PEARL SCHWINGEL
RT4
COHOCTON  NY

I would love to be able to return this little piece of history to Mr Manktelow (if he is still alive) or to his family but I really have no idea how to go about this, then I found you via the internet and see that you have had some great results, so any help would be very much appreciated

Lorine's notes: I'll start the ball rolling on this search with a WW2 Enlistment Record for Edwin W. Manktelow

Name: Edwin W Manktelow 
Birth Year: 1922 
Race: White, citizen (White) 
Nativity State or Country: New York 
State of Residence: New York 
County or City: Steuben 
Enlistment Date: 17 Dec 1942
Enlistment State: New York 
Enlistment City: Rochester 

The Social Security Death Index is also helpful with this entry

Name:	Edwin W. Manktelow
SSN:	103-16-0110
Last Residence:	14810  Bath, Steuben, New York, USA
BORN:	14 Oct 1922
Died:	1 Apr 2003

Can my wonderful readers help find Edwin's family? Please leave information as a comment on this blog post or via email to me at olivetreegenealogy AT gmail DOT com 

Soldier's Letter from WW2 found Sixty Years Later and Returned

Representation of WW2 letters

This is touching story about a woman who found a letter written by a soldier that was 60 years old. She tracked down descendants and sent the letter home.

The letter was found in a pile of paperbacks that Sandi Blood purchased and was dated November 1951 and sent from a G. LeBlanc. U.S. Army Pvt. Gilles LeBlanc wrote the three-page letter to his girlfriend, Carole Petch in Toronto, Ontario Canada. 

With the help of social media, Blood was able to find the now 83 year old soldier living in Detroit Michigan

Read the complete story at "Woman finds love letter 6 decades old and tracks down soldier who wrote it" on the Washington Post.

Case #18: T. Kelly WW1 American Soldier's Dog Tag Rescued

Joey wrote to Olive Tree Genealogy asking for help with a WW1 dog tag he found in Wheaton Missouri.

Joey stated that

On one  side the inscription reads ORL then what could be an F or an E then a T. KELLY under that there is a 116. 

On the reverse its just numbers 14472*0 the star is unreadable

So we know that the soldier's name was T. Kelly, his rank was ORL (I have not yet found what that represents) and his unit was the 116. The number on the reverse is his longer personal military number.

My husband and I think that could be a stamp or insignia between ORL and T. Kelly  and not a letter. We also think it is an American soldier's dog tag.

But just to cover all bases, I had a look in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) online database because it is searchable by the soldier's number but there is no T. Kelly with a number starting with 14472. I then searched U.K. WW1 records on Ancestry.com because they are also searchable by soldier number but that was a miss.

Unfortunately the American WW1 soldier draft records on Ancestry.com are not searchable by the soldier's number. I did find a Jonathan Ernest Kelly living in Wheaton Missouri at the time of his enlistment but could not spot a T. Kelly.

So we need my wonderful readers to pitch in and help find the soldier who lost this dog tag. You've solved 13 cases of the 17 posted previous to T. Kelly so I have no doubts you can work your genealogy sleuthing magic again!

Please either post your findings here as a comment or send them to me privately at olivetreegenealogy AT gmail DOT com  Remember to not put any information about living individuals in your comments, any contact addresses or phone numbers for descendants of T. Kelly should be sent in private email.


 

WW2 American Soldiers Dog Tags - Families Found!

Great news! Families for two of our WW2 dog tags that belonged to American soldiers have been found!

James F. Courtney

Readers will recall that in September Olive Tree Genealogy posted about a found dog tag for American Soldier James. F. Courtney. His dog tag was found in a house in Normandy. Well, I'm pleased to say that my readers found James' grandson (also a soldier) and contact has been made.

The finder in Normandy has been asked for photos of where the dog tag was found and we hope a photo will be taken when the tag is received in United States by family members. I'll keep you posted!

Samuel P. Loftus

Samuel Loftus' WW2 dog tags were found by John of The Two Terriers Blog. Names and addresses of Samuel's son and daughter were found. I passed these on to John and he's written a letter to the son, who runs a jewellery store in Pendleton Oregon.  We are all anxiously waiting for his response.  I also hope for photos so watch the blog for more details.

A big thank you goes out to all the Olive Tree Genealogy blog readers who jumped in to hunt for James and Samuel's families and especially to Becky who never gave up! Another happy ending as the result of great team work!

Update on Samuel P. Loftus WW2 Dog Tags

Update on Samuel Loftus WW2 Dog Tags which were found in Norfolk England

Elizabeth found an obituary for Samuel P. Loftus! It  contains details of family members who are quite likely living so she sent it to me privately. I'm going to share part of the obit here so readers can see what progress is being made. Perhaps someone else can track down Samuel's son and daughter - we are so close to being able to send these dog tags back to the family!

Wallowa County Chieftain (Enterprise, OR) - February 7, 2008

Deceased Name: Obituaries: Samuel Loftus

Samuel Patrick Loftus, 84, died Feb. 3, 2008, in Pendleton. The third of five children, Sam was born on Aug. 11, 1923, to Jim and Lucy Loftus on Elk Mountain. He spent most of his childhood at Imnaha. After high school graduation in 1942, Sam enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served three years in Europe during World War II. 

 

During his military time, he met Laura Mae Jones of Gordon, Texas, and they married in 1947. In 1950, Sam was called back to active military duty and spent one year serving in the Korean conflict. [portions removed]

 

Preceded in death by his wife of 52 years in 2000, Sam is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, [names removed] of Pendleton; his daughter and son-in-law, [names removed]; two granddaughters; one grandson; and one great-granddaughter, all of Portland.