Treasurer seeks owners of Purple Heart medals

In a quest to return a Purple Heart medal, the state treasurer’s office is looking for a person or family that left the valued United States military decoration at an Oak Park bank at least a generation ago. Other Purple Hearts were left at banks in Homewood, Round Lake, Darien and elsewhere.

On Nov. 2, State Treasurer Michael Frerichs announced the launch of Operation Purple Heart, where the goal is to return 11 Purple Heart medals found statewide to the rightful owners or their families.

Local banks turned over the medals to the state treasurer’s office’s Unclaimed Property program.

“These medals personify honor, sacrifice and duty,” Frerichs said in a statement. “They belong in the loving care of families rather than hidden inside our cold basement vault.”

In the Oak Park case, representatives of a local bank sent over the medal to the state in November 2002. The treasurer’s office believes someone with the last name of Smith rented a safe deposit box at the bank where the medal was found, according to spokesman Greg Rivara.

It is not known how long the medal was sitting in the safe deposit box before the bank sent it over to the state, but typically banks surrender items to the treasurer’s office five years after they have no contact with the owners, Rivara noted.

“The banks are supposed to try and contact the owners,” Rivara said. “When they fail, that is when they turn over the contents to the state’s treasurer’s office. We by law are mandated to try and return that property forever.”

The treasurer’s office acknowledges this might be a difficult task.

“Military medals are among the most difficult items to return because the name under which the honor was submitted as unclaimed property might not correspond to the name of the honoree,” according to a statement. “Further, neither the Armed Forces nor the federal government maintains a comprehensive list of awardees. Finally, it is possible that the military honor under which the medal was submitted is not related to the awardee.”

In other words, Rivara said, the name on the award might not be the same as the name on the safe deposit box.

However, the treasurer’s office said seven Purple Hearts have been returned to Illinois families since 2015.

Besides Oak Park, the other medals awaiting their rightful owners were located in Channahon, Chicago, Darien, Decatur, Homewood, O’Fallon, Peoria, Round Lake and Portland, Oregon, according to Rivara.

The Purple Heart is the nation’s oldest military honor, with its origins

dating to 1782.