In 2019, an Arizona woman named Laura Hardey found a Purple Heart medal at a Goodwill store. It was priced at $4.99 . When she noticed it was engraved with a name, she realized it wasn't just a trinket — it was a military honor that had belonged to a real soldier. She posted the name online and asked for help.
With assistance from veterans and genealogists, she discovered the medal belonged to Eual H. Whiteman, a paratrooper who served in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment during World War II . He had earned the Purple Heart and the Combat Infantryman Badge for his actions in the Ardennes campaign . The woman located his family and returned the medal, ensuring it would once again be treasured as a symbol of his service and sacrifice.
Hardy had received a phone call from Tina Cook, who, for the past 16 years, had run a Facebook group - Veteran Buddy Finder - that helps veterans find each other. Cook said she used a genealogy website and a newspaper archive website to find mentions of Whiteman, and ultimately found a living relative of his in Missouri.
That relative, Whiteman’s former sister-in-law Phyllis Lawson, said she was shocked to get phone calls from Cook and Hardy letting her know that Whiteman’s Purple Heart had been found in Arizona.
“There’s a mystery person out there somewhere that gave that to the Goodwill,” Lawson, 68, told ABC News. “I have no idea how it got there.”
Lawson, of Holts Summit, Missouri, was married to Whiteman’s younger brother, Robert Alan Whiteman, who she says passed away in 2013. The couple divorced in the 1980s and Lawson says she never knew much about Eual Whiteman, who was much older than his brother.
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