SHELBY, Ohio– (Updated March 31, 2015) A long-lost Purple Heart Medal, awarded to soldiers wounded in combat, will finally come to rest with its owner thanks to the power of social media.
Almost 21 years ago, Tish Harmon Bernath was cleaning her apartment on Second Street in Shelby when she discovered a little black box in the top of her garage. Upon opening the box, she discovered a small piece of history.
“I didn’t know what it was at first,” said Bernath. “I just saw it was a Purple Heart with a name on the back.”
Bernath had stumbled upon the Purple Heart Medal of Sgt. Frank Holsten, who fought for his country in World War I. At the time, though, none of this was known to Bernath.
“When I found it, at the time I’d looked for a name but I really didn’t comprehend what this thing was,” she said. “Back then I was in my early 20s and my parents lived behind me, so I asked my dad if he would keep it. He put it in his lock box, and I forgot all about it.”
Holsten’s Purple Heart remained in that lock box until the death of Bernath’s father in 2010. After reuniting a lost class ring and a set of dog tags with their original owners, Bernath decided to use Facebook to try and find the owner of the mysterious Purple Heart.
Bernath authored a Facebook post on Feb. 25 reading, “To my family and friends in Shelby…help me find the owner of this…” and almost instantly, the response was overwhelming. Bernath’s original post was shared 287 times. Her post on the Facebook page “U.S. Army W.T.F! moments” was liked 1,106 times and shared 2,213 times.
“People were messaging me like crazy,” said Bernath. “I had people praising me and thanking me, I was just baffled at how fast this went.”
Eventually Bernath’s post was shared on the Facebook page of Purple Hearts Reunited, a non-profit organization dedicated to returning lost or stolen military medals of valor to veterans or their families. It was then that Army National Guard Capt. Zachariah Fike stepped in.
“We start getting tons of messages from people, so we jumped on it rather quickly because we can have thousands of people messaging us,” said Fike. “I reached out and said, let me help.”
Fike, who is currently on active-duty, founded Purple Hearts Reunited in 2012 with the mission of locating lost or stolen military medals and returning them to veterans or their living family members in order to honor their sacrifice to the nation. To date, Purple Hearts Reunited has returned the service medals of more than 100 veterans and is currently working on over 200 lost medals that need a home.
Fike personally knows the significance of a Purple Heart Medal – he earned his own Purple Heart on Sept. 11, 2010 while serving in Afghanistan. He has served in the military for 16 years with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and also comes from a long line of military tradition and patriots: his grandfather served in the Philippines; his father, a veteran of Vietnam, served 26 years in the Army and retired as a Command Sergeant Major; his mother was one of the first female drill sergeants in the Army.
“You go to war and come back a different person,” said Fike. “I found my therapy through collecting antiques, I enjoyed the thrill of finding something of value. I started seeing discarded military items and it broke my heart.
“As a foundation we want to make sure it goes to the right place so it’s preserved and this doesn’t happen again,” he continued. “It’s brought closure to their lives, we’ve had people expire a couple weeks later that tell us in their last days that medal has brought them peace and solace in their life.”
After some research, Fike was able to find more information about Sgt. Frank Holsten: he was born on Feb. 6, 1893 in Eureka, Ohio and enlisted in the U.S. military on June 20, 1917. Holsten served in Company B of the 166th Infantry, 42nd Infantry Division in World War I. He was wounded in action on July 28, 1918 at the age of 25, and was discharged on May 17, 1919. Holsten died on Oct. 18, 1967 at the age of 74.
Purple Hearts Reunited tries to reunite the medals of deceased soldiers with their living family members; Fike learned that Holsten had nine siblings, six brothers and three sisters; unfortunately all are deceased. Holsten’s wife, Edna, is also deceased.
“With Frank being a WWI soldier, finding a direct descendant can be difficult,” Fike explained.
Fike had been able to locate a few nieces and nephews of Holsten, but said he has experienced difficulty in contacting them – until he received a call on March 30, the day Richland Source originally published this article.
“Literally 20 minutes after [the article published], the family called me,” said Fike in an email. “They are thrilled!”
The call came from Judi Holsten Guizado, a great-niece of Frank Holsten currently living in California. Guizado explained that Fike had contacted her half-sister in England via Ancestry.com, looking for descendants of Holsten. She and her half-sister had only just met each other in July 2014.
“I thought it was a scam, but once I talked to (Fike) I realized it was real,” said Guizado. “I called my family to see what I could do to get more information about Uncle Frank.”
Guizado was then put in touch with a cousin she had never met, Rick Lanthorn from Newark, Ohio. Lanthorn said he spoke with Guizado on the phone for half an hour on March 30 sharing details about their uncle.
“Everybody knew he was in the service, I remember my dad talking about him being in the service and getting hurt, but nobody ever gave a thought about a Purple Heart or where it was at,” said Lanthorn.
Lanthorn was young when Frank Holsten passed away, but remembers him as a very nice man. He said he still visits Holsten’s grave in Columbus on military holidays to place wreaths, and realized that was the perfect final resting place for his medal.
“He’d like to get the Purple Heart and have it encased and have it placed on his gravesite so it’ll go back to its original home,” said Guizado. “In a very short period of time we’re getting Frank’s heart back to where it belongs.”
“When I found it, at the time I’d looked for a name but I really didn’t comprehend what this thing was,” said Tish Harmon Bernath. “Back then I was in my early 20s and my parents lived behind me, so I asked my dad if he would keep it
