‘A piece of him is coming back’

They emerged from bloody battles with shattered bones, lost limbs, scars and, for some, emotional wounds that would last a lifetime. All were young but ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

From small towns to bustling Chicago, the men left for war and came home with legacies of bravery, resilience and brotherhood.

Each had earned a Purple Heart, which is awarded only to those who are injured or killed in combat. But, as time marched on, their medals ended up in long-untouched bank safe deposit boxes and, eventually, a government vault for safekeeping.

That didn't sit well with Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs, whose office is entrusted with billions of dollars in unclaimed property, including military medals. He has returned a dozen Purple Hearts , along with other military medals and paperwork, during his nine years in office. Only one of the 12 men was still alive to accept in person; the other medals went to family members.

In an effort to find homes for the 11 heart-shaped commemorations that remain unclaimed , the Tribune spent about four months this year researching public records and interviewing people with possible connections to the abandoned safe deposit boxes.

Two of the 11 medals remain a mystery. They have been in the treasurer's vault since 1992 and 2003; the names attached to the safe deposit boxes are Robert Cawthon and David Gorski.

But the Tribune found evidence identifying the veterans in the other nine cases. At the Tribune's request, researchers with the National Archives and Records Administration in St. Louis then unearthed discharge papers verifying their decorated military service. The Cook County clerk's office, which has a veterans affairs unit, also assisted.

Most of the men were members of the Greatest Generation who fought in World War II and have long since passed away. Their medals became lost over the decades, as generations of their family trees died off. Other reasons such as divorce, family estrangements and new addresses contributed, the Tribune found.

A Vietnam War veteran who weeks ago celebrated his 77th birthday said one of the Purple Hearts belongs to him. The former Marine said he had given it to his longtime partner, who stored it in her Oak Park bank safe deposit box before her death in 2014.

"Well, whoop-de-doo," Michael Mitchell, of Georgia, said cheerfully when a Tribune reporter contacted him. "Whenever I thought about my Purple Heart, I wondered, 'Where is that thing?'"

Frerichs said military medals are often difficult to return because the name under which the property was submitted may not correspond to the name of the honoree. A Purple Heart has no engravings that would identify the recipient or the conflict in which it was awarded. And neither the Armed Forces nor the federal government maintains a comprehensive list.

"I want to return all of them," Frerichs said. "A lot of people served their country, came back home and didn't want to talk about it, either because there was trauma associated with it or they felt that their colleagues who passed deserved (the Purple Heart) more than them. But they were all heroes of our country. That's why this is a labor of love."

He launched "Operation Purple Heart" in November 2021. On Oct. 29, Frerichs returned one of the 11 medals to a 71-year-old Decatur woman whose father fought in WWII as a Marine. The Tribune is publishing that story in print on Monday, Veterans Day.

Here are the stories of the other eight:

Faded clips yield veteran's identity

Raymond A. Wilson, 1919-1976

Raymond Wilson's Purple Heart has sat unclaimed for nearly 30 years.

The only information that treasurer officials knew about him was that he lived on South Lituanica Avenue in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. The bank that turned over the medal didn't even provide the state with a middle initial — adding to the difficulty in finding a man with such a common last name.

Despite years of publicity about the unclaimed medals, Wilson remained a mystery.

The Tribune researched several Raymond Wilsons buried in military cemeteries, as well as reviewed property records and court documents, all in vain.

Then, Treasurer Frerichs allowed the Tribune into the Springfield vault. As it turns out, the key to uncovering Wilson's identity was right there — contained in an 80-year-old newspaper that had been neatly folded with other clippings and saved in the box at the Chicago bank.

Under the headline "Wounded in action," a Tribune story from June 5, 1943, listed the names of local soldiers wounded in combat in North Africa during WWII. Among them was Army Pvt. Raymond A. Wilson. The , which included a photo, also provided his mother's name and address in the city's Belmont Heights neighborhood, as his next of kin.

Researchers at the National Archives unearthed several pages of Wilson's military records, charred from a 1973 fire at the St. Louis records center. The records provide a snapshot into Wilson's decorated military career, including injuries from when he drove over a land mine and a separate wound from when shrapnel hit him in his shoulder.

The incidents in North Africa and Italy earned Wilson a Purple Heart and an oak leaf cluster, which indicates a subsequent injury. Among his campaign ribbons and medals, Wilson also received a Bronze Star for "meritorious service" supporting combat operations with a field artillery unit in Tunisia, Sicily and on the 5th Army front in Italy.

After three years of service and multiple campaigns, which included taking part in operations in the Rhineland in western Germany, he came home to Chicago in June 1945.

Wilson did not have children or a wife when he died at age 56, according to his 1976 Tribune obituary, and his two sisters and stepsiblings are long deceased. He is buried near his mother and sisters at Acacia Park Cemetery in Norridge, where his tombstone says simply, "brother."

After interviewing a half-dozen distant relatives, the Tribune found one man, Richard Doyle, 89, of Florida, who remembers "Uncle Ray" well. His paternal grandfather was Wilson's stepdad. The family called Wilson "Popeye," for his bulging eyes.

Doyle said Wilson visited him a few times in Florida, where the two enjoyed eating oysters on the half shell at bars in the Tampa Bay area.

He said his uncle rarely talked about the war, but Doyle said Wilson did describe how he on occasion drove U.S. General George S. Patton in a half-track and considered Patton "the greatest man he ever met."

The Tribune shared Wilson's available military records with Charles Province, a Patton expert, who said Wilson likely was telling the truth given his documented participation in campaigns under Patton's command. Though Patton had personal drivers, Province said he also used men from local units to drive him when he was visiting troops in the field.

Doyle said Wilson also told him about the time he drove over the land mine. Wilson had a colostomy bag because of a stomach injury suffered as a result of that incident. Doyle said it's "a crime" Wilson's Purple Heart is unclaimed and he'd love to have it.

"I remember him before he got hurt," Doyle said. "I was just a little kid, but I remember him coming down the gangway at my grandmother's house in his uniform on leave and he was always the jovial type, laughing, kidding. And then after he got out of the service he was always withdrawn and quiet, very quiet."

"My uncle Ray was a great soldier and a great guy," Doyle said. "I really admire him."

'That's what I want to do'

James Allison Kolofa, 1919-2007

Eight decades ago, while flying aerial attack missions to help liberate Europe from Nazi Germany's grip, James Allison Kolofa kept a logbook describing the dangerous, freezing conditions he and his fellow airmen endured.

It was Mission No. 14, on Oct. 15, 1944, that earned him a Purple Heart.

Piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress, the men faced heavy flak from German cannons while flying above Cologne, armed with 250-pound bombs and aiming for the railroad yards below.

Five crew members were injured during the six-hour trip, flown at an altitude of 25,000 feet at conditions that reached 36 degrees below zero, according to his journal.

"I went back and brought (the rear gunner) out of the tail," he wrote, describing some of the aftermath. "He was hit in the right upper arm and was bleeding badly. I stopped the bleeding while (another man) patched him up."

Kolofa didn't realize he too had been struck until his bomber crew landed for the night in Brussels and a waiting medical team noticed his protective clothing, including a heated suit, was shredded in the back.

"The doc looks at him and says, 'Yep, you got a problem back here,'" his son, Bob Allison, 71, of Arizona, told the Tribune.

As Allison tells it, the shrapnel ripped through all the layers of clothing his father had on and then, rather than penetrating the skin, "it stood up and turned over flat."

The impact left a mark the size of a silver dollar on Kolofa's back, but the WWII armorer sergeant was otherwise uninjured.

"He said, 'I got lucky. I just got lucky,'" his son said. "I don't even think he told anybody about it. All he cared about was being able to fly again. But somebody ... put him in for a medal. And that's how he got the Purple Heart."

The military initially rejected Kolofa because of an ingrown toenail when he tried to enlist, his son said. "If you have a problem walking, you can't join," Allison said, recounting a conversation with his dad.

"But he was a tough guy," Allison said. "He thought he could do anything. He said, 'I want to be on the plane.' They said no one wants to be on there, and he said, 'Good because, well, that's where I want to be.'"

Kolofa eventually got his wish, becoming a member of the 8th Air Force 457th Bomb Group, 748th Bomb Squadron, and taking part in combat missions in Normandy, Ardennes-Alsace and the Rhineland.

He flew in 35 bomb missions over two years with a final flight in western Germany on Jan. 20, 1945, that he described as "a good one," according to his journal. As waist gunner, Kolofa's assignment was to protect his aircraft from attacking planes.

"Finis," his final entry said. "Hot dog."

Back home in Illinois, Kolofa began going by his middle name, Allison, when he started an excavating business with a buddy. They called it Allison and Rose Excavating.

"He thought that meant when anyone looked in the yellow pages, he'd be one of the first ones they'd see on the list," his son said.

James Allison married his sweetheart, Lorraine, in 1950 and raised their two children in Crete, then later lived in rural Hennepin in Putnam County. As his parents aged, Bob Allison said he and his wife, Carol, persuaded them to move to Arizona in 2005.

Allison said he treasures his father's wartime logbook and five medals, including his Purple Heart, all of it stored in a shadow box in his home.

The mystery behind the Purple Heart in the treasurer's vault lies with Bob Allison's sister, Nancy Johnston, who died of alcoholism in 2012.

Bob Allison said his sister ordered copies of their father's medals, including a Purple Heart, and likely "just left" the safe deposit box and its contents. He hopes the state will donate the copies to "someone who needs them."

Bob Allison said his dad rarely flew after the war. In his father's final months in assisted living, Allison displayed the war medals in his father's room to help him remember a life well lived. The veteran died in 2007 at age 88.

"I could have never asked for a better dad than him," Allison said, choking back tears. "He was just unbelievable. He was about the easiest-going guy I've ever seen."

Dedicated to his community

James R. Bennett, 1914-1990

Born in Indiana on the Fourth of July, James Bennett grew up in Blue Island but made nearby Oak Lawn his lifelong home after marrying his wife, Ann, on Christmas Eve 1935.

The young couple were separated by WWII in 1943, when Bennett fought as an Army rifleman in battles in Normandy, northern France and the Rhineland, according to his military records.

He was wounded Aug. 13, 1944, in France and again on Dec. 13 in Germany. Bennett also developed trench foot, which was common because of the cold, damp conditions.

He recovered in hospitals in Germany, England and France, according to his wartime letters, some of which are part of a history exhibit at Oak Lawn Public Library.

"There is nothing to worry about sweets," Bennett wrote to his wife from Paris in a letter dated Dec. 19, 1944. "I got nicked in the head again but that is only a scratch. ... I love you so much hon, more than I can ever say."

Bennett came home in December 1945. Among his medals, bronze service stars and ribbons was a Purple Heart with an oak leaf cluster.

Show Caption1 of 4

James R. Bennett of Oak Lawn was awarded a Purple Heart and an oak leaf cluster, which indicates a second injury, for his service in World War II. Although his nephew Jim Parker has his uncle's medals at his Arizona home, a Purple Heart engraved in Bennett's name also ended up in the state treasurer's custody. It was unclear which of the medals is original. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

A few years later, the Bennetts had their only child, Susan. The baby had severe disabilities after suffering encephalitis and was not expected to survive beyond early childhood, but Susan Bennett lived into her 50s.

"They doted on her," said Patty Knies, 70, of northwest Indiana, who became Susan's legal guardian after the deaths of the Bennetts, her aunt and uncle. "She had her difficulties, so they decided not to have any more children and put all of themselves into taking care of her. They treated her with such love, respect and dignity."

James Bennett also dedicated time to his community, volunteering in the Oak Lawn Fire Department and as a part-time member of the police force. He taught safety tips to children at school assemblies, volunteered with local Scout troops, helped hospitalized veterans and collected and repaired toys for children with developmental disabilities. He also served as commander of his local VFW.

Bennett died in 1990 at age 76, according to his Tribune obituary. His wife, a longtime Oak Lawn newspaper columnist, died seven years later.

Though Ann Bennett entrusted Knies with her estate and the welfare of her daughter, who died in 2001, Knies said her aunt never mentioned or left a record of a safe deposit box.

And that's where a Purple Heart engraved with James Bennett's name sat until the bank turned the medal over to the treasurer's office in 2022 along with his father's discharge papers from World War I, among other items.

"Oh my God. I can't believe this," Knies said when the Tribune tracked her down through family obituaries, census and land records. "I had no idea."

It appears Bennett had ordered duplicate medals, as Knies' older brother, Jim Parker, has his uncle's war memorabilia, including two Purple Hearts, at his home in Phoenix.

He said his mother, Bennett's sister, gave the box to him for safekeeping decades ago.

"He was just so special," said Parker, 81, "and it was important to me that they gave me the medals to take care of."

Regardless, Patty Knies said it's important to her to get the other medal back.

"He was such a wonderful man," she said. "We have not forgotten him. It's a piece of him. He earned it."

'Perhaps someone will remember'

Stephen J. Grabowski, 1917-1974

The Second World War was coming to an end, with victory within sight, when Stephen Grabowski took part in an Allied offensive in Italy on April 16, 1945.

Born in Chicago to Polish immigrant parents, Grabowski made it through three years of service in the Army. But on this day a grenade struck his bunker, burying the 27-year-old private beneath the rubble. Grabowski survived, but he came home paralyzed from the waist down.

Two decades later, he spoke about his life-altering injury with a Chicago Sun-Times writer who was researching a 1967 Memorial Day column about hospitalized veterans.

"We were headed for La Spezia, when we ran into some Germans," Grabowski told the reporter. "We cleaned out some bunkers and six of us were stationed in one when a shell hit and the roof collapsed."

A beam struck him on the neck and crushed a vertebra, according to his military records. He lost use of both of his legs and his fingers. After returning home in late 1946, he began living at Hines VA Hospital; records show he died of kidney failure in 1974.

Decades later, in 2010, the state received a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a WWII campaign ribbon from a bank, along with the name and address of a man connected to the safe deposit box.

Show Caption1 of 3

U.S. Army Pvt. Stephen Grabowski, a WWII veteran from Chicago who died in 1974, received a Bronze Star in addition to a Purple Heart. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

Identifying the medals as Grabowski's took some work. As it turned out, the Polish last name provided by the bank was misspelled, and no one with either spelling was connected to the address through available public records.

But a 1950 census documented someone with a similar name from Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. That information led the Tribune to a younger relative, Bernie Ustaszewski, who said he and other relatives have been long estranged from the man.

And Ustaszewski had an uncle who fought in World War II: Stephen Grabowski. The National Archives unearthed military records that confirmed he served in the war and received the type of medals held in the treasurer's vault.

Ustaszewski speculated that the estranged relative – who has a criminal history – gained possession of the medals from Ustaszewski's aunt, Helen Czerwinski. She and the relative lived together at times, and records show she gave him her home when she was in a nursing facility. She died in 2006.

When the state treasurer allowed the Tribune to examine the unclaimed property this fall, a reporter saw the back of the Bronze Star carried the name Stephen J. Grabowski. The medal was awarded for "heroic or meritorious achievement."

Grabowski died at age 56 at Hines VA Hospital, when his godson, Ustaszewski, was 21.

Years later, Ustaszewski named his only son after his uncle. He also has Grabowski's death certificate and old family photos, including one at his communion in which he is standing by his uncle's side, their arms entwined.

Ustaszewski said his aunt Helen often brought her paralyzed brother for visits to her South Side home or took him on other outings.

"Unfortunately, I didn't know a lot about his life," said Ustaszewski, of Sugar Grove. "That's always a regret in my life."

The Tribune also reached the daughter of Ustaszewski's estranged relative, who is in his late 70s. Chrystal Cantrell confirmed her dad is alive but in poor health in a Chicago nursing facility. Cantrell said the Tribune's discovery of the long-lost "family treasures" is meaningful to her.

"(My husband and I) are old-school," she said. "We believe you have the freedom you have because someone stood up and did the right thing."

Before the war, Grabowski worked as a checker at Goldblatt's in Chicago and enjoyed softball, table tennis and fishing, according to his military records. He is buried in a crypt at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery in Justice, not far from his parents and sisters.

In the 1967 Sun-Times story, Grabowski said he spent his time reading, watching television and painting. He also enjoyed the racetrack.

Grabowski told the reporter it seemed like Memorial Day is "just another holiday" to most people. "It seems like no one wants to bother with you, especially after a few years. They get busy," he was quoted as saying.

The ended this way:

"On Memorial Day, he may remember those who had even this measure of life denied them. And perhaps someone will remember Grabowski, too."

Once a Marine, always a Marine

Michael L. Mitchell, born 1947

At 21, Michael Mitchell was eager to get out on his own.

But he faced a few hurdles. Raised by a single mother on Chicago's West Side, Mitchell said he didn't do well in high school and dropped out. He had moved in with his older brother, but that, too, wasn't going so well.

Too proud to go back home, he volunteered in January 1968 to serve in the Vietnam War for three years. He wanted to be a Marine.

"Yes, I was crazy," he said. "I went to the recruitment officer and he said, 'You come back here tomorrow and we're going to ship you off.' So that's what I did. I went home, went to bed, and I came back the next day."

Mitchell said he informed his mother by letter from Camp Pendleton in California, where he said he was trained to "kill and destroy." He was tempted not to return from a short home visit before his deployment but thought, "What the hell, they already got my name."

"So I did the right thing," he said. "I went back. And it turned out OK."

Mitchell believes one of the unclaimed Purple Hearts is his. He recalls giving it to his longtime girlfriend, Bernice Smith, for safekeeping decades ago. The state has had the medal since 2002, when Smith's bank turned it over. Smith died in March 2014, according to public records.

Now 77 and living near Atlanta, Mitchell said he'd like to get the medal back and "hang it up somewhere" in the apartment he shares with Smith's daughter Karen Thomas and a grandson.

Thomas, 54, said Mitchell helped raise her since she was 5.

"My mom always looked out for his best interest," Thomas said. "She probably put it in there (the bank safe deposit box) and forgot all about it."

Mitchell served primarily as a lance corporal for the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines Regiment, 2nd Marines Division. The Tribune could not immediately verify Mitchell had received a Purple Heart, but records provided by the National Archives show he was struck by grenade shrapnel on May 12, 1969, in Quang Tin province.

"We were walking through a field or something and they had a lot of booby traps," he said. "Someone hit one and a grenade went off. It just so happened it hit me."

His injuries weren't life-threatening, he said, and his hospitalization was short. "If you could walk and still pull the trigger," he said, "they'll send you right back out there."

About a month later, Mitchell found himself in what he considered an even more frightening situation when he was tapped as squad leader.

According to an achievement medal citation, while out on patrol Mitchell warned a large compound about four approaching enemy soldiers, then fought off a "platoon size enemy force" and "captured a wounded enemy soldier who later provided valuable intelligence information."

Mitchell said he's more of a follower than a leader but on that day, "It came to the point where I had to do it and I did it like I was born to do it. All that training kicked in."

Of his family back home, he said: "There was a lot of praying. They were always listening to the news about how many people got killed and this and that. I was always writing letters and telling them I was doing all right and telling some jokes to make them laugh."

After Vietnam he was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and was able to see more of the world when deployed for humanitarian and public relations efforts in such far-flung places as Gibraltar and Malta.

Show Caption1 of 6

A photo of Michael Mitchell from his time as a U.S. Marine. He served in the Vietnam War. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

Similar to other veterans, Mitchell said he struggled with post-traumatic stress symptoms after the war. He said "just walking down the street" in Chicago terrified him for a while. He had nightmares but, he said, "I handled it." He kept himself busy at school learning how to tailor clothing, and he worked.

He said veterans like himself often got police or security jobs. But his mother had one rule: no more guns. So Mitchell became a custodian with the Chicago Police Department.

After retiring in 1999, Mitchell later lived in California for about 15 years but now is settled with Thomas near Atlanta, where he visits the senior center most days to shoot pool with his buddies. He also makes walking canes after taking up wood carving years ago.

He has more than a dozen grandchildren.

"I'm very proud of my pops," Thomas said of Mitchell, whom she considers her stepfather. "I see the Marine in him. He has that aura about him. He doesn't play."

Mitchell said he was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam and later to contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune. He has prostate cancer, he said, and is trying to get the full benefits he believes he is owed.

"I'm doing OK," he said.

Mitchell said he does not consider himself particularly heroic. He doesn't regret enlisting at 21, as it helped him earn an honest paycheck and medical benefits. And he is proud to have served.

"What they taught me is still instilled within me," he said. "If I want to ever give up on something, I say, 'Well, I got to keep on trying. Keep on going and take one more step.'"

Activist for other veterans

John L. Moore, 1924-2002

Roy and Dorothy Moore received the War Department's casualty telegram in August 1944.

At the time, two of the Peoria couple's four sons were away fighting in WWII.

We "regret to inform you your son Private John L. Moore was wounded in action," it began. The message, addressed to Dorothy, explained her 20-year-old son had been injured in battle on July 27 in France but his wounds were not life-threatening.

Moore was struck by shrapnel on his right wrist, left knee and his lower right leg, according to his military records. He returned to active duty that winter for several months, but persistent nerve damage affected the use of his hand and led to more hospitalizations.

He had survived campaigns in France, including Normandy, and the Rhineland and returned to Illinois in 1946 with a Purple Heart and other military honors, including the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal. His brother, LeRoy, also in the Army, made it home safe as well.

Jerry Moore, the youngest of the four boys, was little more than a toddler when his brothers left. Still, he recalled to the Tribune how terrifying those three years were for the family.

"Johnny got shot pretty bad," said Moore, 85, of Decatur. "He had a young lieutenant who led them into what turned out to be an ambush and that's how he got wounded. There were several in his outfit that got shot. Some of them didn't make it."

He said his brother's war injuries, including chronic pain in his legs, gave him trouble but John Moore didn't let it hold him back. He and his wife, Grace, married shortly after his return and had five children, including a boy who died a few months after birth.

Moore enjoyed hunting and fishing and worked in carpentry and roofing, having learned the trades along with his brothers while working with their dad, a World War I veteran. John Moore also worked as a truck driver, postal worker and hospital maintenance supervisor before retiring in 1986.

A granddaughter, Angie Holliger, said she has special memories of the time she spent in her grandparents' home in Peoria.

"He laughed a lot," she said of her maternal grandfather. "I knew the service was important to him. He showed that by prioritizing anything and everything the VFW. was doing."

Moore was a past commander for posts in Peoria Heights and East Peoria, active in the American Legion and among the many who joined an effort to build Illinois' WWII Illinois Veterans Memorial in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.

Show Caption1 of 5

Jerry Moore, of Decatur, clears the grave marker of his brother John, a Purple Heart recipient, at Illini Cemetery in Warrensburg last month. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

He died at age 78 in 2002 after suffering a heart attack. His name is among nearly 3,000 etched in the memorial's commemorative granite bricks. The bronze headstone of his grave in nearby Warrensburg also speaks to his proud military service. It reads: "John Louis Moore Sr. PFC US Army WWII Purple Heart D-Day Invasion Survivor."

Yet, 22 years after his death, Moore's hard-won Purple Heart sits in the Springfield vault. The treasurer has had it since 2001, when a bank deemed a safe deposit box to be abandoned and turned over the medal.

The box was in the name of Moore's second wife, Linda, whom he married in 1986. Their marriage ended in 1992, according to court records. Linda Hermann, who is remarried and living in Texas, confirmed to the Tribune that the Purple Heart is her ex-husband's and said it belongs with his family.

"I would like for her to have it," she said of Moore's granddaughter. "She loved her grandpa."

Hermann, 76, said she isn't sure what happened to his other medals. The only other item in the box was John Moore's last will and testament.

Holliger, who lives in Arizona, said she intends to file a claim for the Purple Heart.

"My grandparents' divorce was really hard on the family, but we all still loved our grandfather," she said. "I just feel like this is kind of a healing moment for the family. It's a lost thing that we didn't even know was out here waiting for us. ... I feel like a piece of him is coming back now."

A 'typical Irishman'

Russell J. Reilly, 1919-1980

The box holding Russell J. Reilly's Purple Heart held a crucial clue about his identity: a will for a woman the Tribune found to be living in a resort town near Little Rock, Arkansas.

Patti Reilly, 74, confirmed the medal belonged to her father, who she said was forever shaped by his three years in the Army during WWII. She said his right leg was amputated following a devastating combat injury that earned him the Purple Heart.

His disability affected his work, his health and even something as routine as watching her school recitals, his daughter said.

"He didn't come to a lot of my stuff at school because you had bleachers and there was no way he could climb them," she said. "I saw the disappointment in his face at times because of his disability and how it limited him in life."

Reilly said that when she lived in Lake County she kept a will, some old coins and her father's Purple Heart in a bank safe deposit box. She changed her last name after a divorce and moved out of state, but Reilly said she left a forwarding address. She has tried over the years to find out what happened to the contents of the box, Reilly said.

The state has had the Purple Heart since the Lake County bank turned it over in October 2018 with a misspelled version of Reilly's former last name, Vanhanselaere. It also listed another family member.

Reilly said she had heard about the treasurer's efforts to return the medals but hadn't yet made a claim when the Tribune tracked her down through a granddaughter in Chicago's northwest suburbs.

"I still have the little container that the keys are in and the box number and stuff," said Reilly. "I told the bank, 'I don't understand how could you not have found me?' Everyone else found me. And I stayed at that bank for years."

Russell Reilly registered for the draft in 1940, according to census and military records. At the time, he was a red-haired, 21-year-old messenger for the Chicago Daily News who lived in Chicago's South Austin neighborhood with his parents and one of his two brothers.

After his war injury he spent about a year receiving care that left him with a lifelong disdain for hospitals, his daughter said. He was honorably discharged in December 1945, records show.

Patti Reilly said he wore a heavy, wooden prosthetic leg fastened to his body with a thick leather belt, or got around using crutches at home, for the remainder of his life.

"He never really talked about the war," she said. "I asked him, 'Well, what happened to you?' According to him, he actually saved a friend and that's when he lost his leg. ... He would just answer me more direct and short, and that was the end of it. He just didn't say much.

"I wish I had asked more questions."

Upon his return to Chicago after his military service, Reilly found work as a police clerk and married in April 1950. After several miscarriages, he and his wife, Edith, adopted Patricia, then 2 years old.

She said her parents left Chicago when she was elementary school age after securing a VA loan to buy a house along North Avenue in Des Plaines. They eventually moved to nearby Wheeling.

"My parents were just good people, very down to earth," she said. "My dad was a typical Irishman. He always wore green on St. Patrick's Day and liked his beer and a shot. ... I was spoiled but not spoiled. I would just go to my dad if I wanted or needed something."

She said Reilly worked in the Cook County sheriff's office as a courthouse deputy, for a suburban police department in dispatch and also in private security for Montgomery Ward.

His disability created obstacles at times. She recalled one incident when an employer retracted a job offer after learning about her father's wooden leg.

"He was getting older and I remember this hit him really bad," she said. "I never realized until I was an adult how hard that had to be."

She was living in Texas and had a newborn daughter – the fourth of her five children – when her 60-year-old dad became gravely ill. Reilly said she drove all night, with her baby, and made it in time to be with him in his final days in a VA hospital.

Her dad died on St. Patrick's Day 1980. "For him to die on St. Patrick's Day, well, what are the chances?" she said.

Reilly said her father's death certificate lists his old war injury as having contributed to his death because doctors see a connection between amputation and certain heart ailments.

Reilly moved back to Illinois after her father's death to help her mom, who died nearly 13 years later. She said her mother began wearing a Purple Heart pin after he died.

She wore it "all the time," Reilly said. "She was very proud of my dad."

Army sergeant wounded twice

Lawrence W. Burns, 1906-1982

The search for information behind Lawrence Burns' Purple Heart sent the Tribune digging deep into court archives and researching a remote area in northern California.

The treasurer's staff has had the medal since 1997, when a Homewood bank turned it over from an abandoned safe deposit box. The box was in the name of Lawrence M. Burns, and Frerichs' staff had learned he might be living off the grid somewhere in California.

The Tribune found records of Burns living in Grass Valley, about 60 miles from Sacramento, and determined it was his father, a WWII veteran, who actually received the Purple Heart.

That man, Lawrence W. Burns, was raised by a single mother along with three younger brothers in Chicago's Grand Crossing neighborhood. His father had died when Burns was about 5.

Researchers at the National Archives in St. Louis unearthed Burns' discharge records, which show the Army sergeant was wounded in two battles in November 1944 during his three years' of service, earning him a Purple Heart with an oak leaf cluster.

Burns fought in northern France, the Rhineland and other parts of central Europe.

He came home in late 1945 and worked as an accountant while living with his elderly mother, according to 1950 census data. He married Aldona Kasper on Jan. 19, 1951, and the Homewood couple had their son, Larry, about 13 months later.

A faithful Catholic, Lawrence Burns was a member of the Knights of Columbus and lived in the south suburbs for 30 years. He died at age 75 in 1982; his wife died seven years later, according to their Tribune obituaries.

As for Larry, the owner of the box, the Tribune learned he had lived for decades in a dilapidated camper without electricity or plumbing in the Sierra Nevada foothills before dying in 2023 in an apartment in town. The cause of death was chronic congestive heart failure, according to a Nevada County sheriff's report.

Mary Kaye Burns of San Diego told the Tribune she thinks she is the closest living relative of the elder Burns. Her father, Dr. Francis J. Burns, who died in 2005, was one of his brothers.

She said theirs is a proud military family. Her oldest brother, Michael Thomas Burns, was a 26-year-old captain in the U.S. Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, when he was killed on a Vietnam War mission in Cambodia in 1969. Their father, Francis, was a WWII Army Air Forces captain.

"This is heartwarming for me," she said upon learning about the treasurer's "Operation Purple Heart" campaign.

Burns, 76, said she'd be honored to have her uncle's medal, which she would display alongside her brother's military honors.

"I wish I had asked (my dad) about his background," she said. "He didn't keep in close contact with his brothers. They all just kind of went their own way."

As for Burns' son Larry, the Tribune found a friend, Karen Mallinen, who said she met him in the 1970s in the bustling fishing port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where they worked on a commercial fishing boat.

Mallinen, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, said she knew he was from Homewood and had inherited money after his parents' deaths but said he had "gambled it all away." To help him out, she let him live for free on her aunt's property in Grass Valley with the caveat that he take care of the land.

He lived in a camper there about 35 years, she said, and used a nearby cabin on the property for electricity and plumbing. He cared for several dogs and feral cats he considered "family," Mallinen said.

"Larry was pretty much a lone wolf character," she said.

Mallinen and another friend, Janet Gregor, of Tahoe, said Burns told them his parents were strict and he was closer to his mother, who was a good cook and taught her son his way around the kitchen. They said he went back to Homewood in the late 1980s to help her out when she got sick. She put him in charge of her estate, court records show.

Gregor said she befriended Burns after she bought the Grass Valley property and helped him find a nearby apartment near the end of his life.

She said the real estate company that handled her purchase contacted her about the Illinois treasurer's Purple Heart campaign after recognizing Burns' name, but his response was that the medal couldn't be his. She said Burns had served in the Vietnam era but did not get shipped out to fight. It didn't seem to occur to him that the medal might be connected to his father, she said.

"I told him about the Purple Heart and he was like, 'This is a scam. I never even went overseas,'" she said. "He said, 'That's not my Purple Heart.' ... Larry was very private and, I wouldn't say distrusting, but he was very wary of people."

The Nevada County sheriff records regarding Larry Burns' death show there was no next of kin to claim his remains. Gregor said the remains were expected to be spread in a state park after a year if no family came forward.

The elder Burns is buried with his wife at St. Casimir Catholic Cemetery on Chicago's Southwest Side.

Anyone with information about the unclaimed Purple Hearts, including those from safe deposit boxes connected to Robert Cawthon or David Gorski, is urged to contact the Illinois Treasurer's Office at For more information, visit operationpurpleheart.org