Purple Hearts Reunited: Honoring The Past
by Liz Ross
The Purple Heart medal is one of the higher awards given by the military for service and is awarded when a soldier is wounded during a conflict. Sometimes personal situations separate the medal from its recipient. PHR's mission is to provide the research which reconnects the medal to its family. Enter a volunteer genealogist.
As a volunteer, after getting a picture of the medal, and any information associated with that medal, the volunteer has one week to find a positive identification of the medal recipient, and 2 living descendants. That done, results are written up and sent in.
Several times a year an awarding ceremony returns the medals. After a re-counting of the soldier's history, the military liaison hands the medal, now part of a collaged picture, to a lineal descendant of the soldier. I attended one such ceremony in Chicago; it was incredibly moving.
Solving the presented puzzle required out of the box thinking and assembling many small pieces. For each project, I started with only name, rank and date, was not allowed to use social media or seek any contact with family or relatives of the soldier, and had one week to identify the soldier and two living relatives.
Join me as I walk through the research done on 3 recipients of the Purple Heart, the things learned and the thrill of the solution.
Liz Ross, professional genealogist for more than 30 years, focuses on the Midwest and its feeder states. She served CAGGNI as VP of programs for 2022-2025 and was Chair of the 2022 Conference. For five years pre-COVID, Ms. Ross led "Second Saturday Genealogy" at the Forest Park Library, a two-hour bi-monthly forum, teaching, mentoring, and encouraging. Nationally and regionally she is published in the Chicago Genealogy Society and DuPage Quarterlies. Proud of her Scottish heritage, Ms. Ross was President of ClanRossAmerica (2 terms), and Trustee (14 years). From 1993-2003 Ms. Ross was Quarterly Editor of ClanRossNews (2 awards), and awarded FSA (Scot) for her work on the newsletter. She lives west of Chicago with a gracious husband, two computers, three spinning wheels and many books. Her email address is RossGen360@outlook.com.
