Interesting collector moment..

[vascrats]

Several years ago I purchased a WWI US gas mask in canvas bag that also came with a set of dog tags. I bought them off of a militaria dealer's website fairly randomly with no association to my city or state. The bag had the name Richard R. Crowgey on it but the dog tags had the name John H. Crowgey on them. At the time I had done the initial research and was able to figure out that the names were from two brothers that both served in WWI. What amazed me was that the brothers were from a city in SW Virginia about an hour SW of the city I live in. Looking at obituaries I was then able to see that John H. was actually buried in my city! I got the picture of John's headstone from the local cemetery's website. I had been wanting for some time to take my son out there and find the headstone myself and possibly take a rubbing of the name and a picture to put with the dog tags. I also had the thought of leaving one of the dog tags somewhere at the headstone where nobody would see it and take it. I thought about putting it in the flower vase hole on the headstone in case a relative one day might find it while putting flowers there. ...then the covid distraction hit and never made the time.

Earlier this week I was pulling pictures off my phone to make room and save them when I ran across the bag and tags picture I took. That sparked me to want to just see if I could possibly track down a living descendant for John H. to give one of the tags to instead of putting it at the grave. Through basic google searches and obituaries l was able to see John H. had a son (among several) named James L. Crowgey who had since passed as well. In his obituary I found the name of a son and his wife's name which I was able to find a possible address and cell phone number for. I sent a text message to the cell number with a brief note about who I was and that I was researching a militaria piece and came down to his name. Unfortunately I had not heard back from. The cell number said it was registered to him as of January of this year so I was hopeful. ...so either I have made a mistake in going down the family tree, that number is not valid for him, or he is not interested or skeptical about my text. I am thinking of sending a letter with a picture of the bag and tags to the address I had found and see if I get anything that way. Again, it is possible I made a mistake in my research, but we will see. I do want to be respectful for people's privacy in the process too though. If this route doesn't pan out I might try looking into another son of the original John H.. Either way, I think the original find of John H.'s grave in my home city is remarkable in itself. Just thought I would share.

Phillip

(The pictures are of the gas mask bag and tags I purchased, the two brothers' headstones (Richard's headstone pic was from an ancestry site), and the display I put the bag and tags with.)