WWI veteran's long lost Purple Heart returned to his family
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A long lost Purple Heart medal awarded to a World War I veteran wounded in a gas attack has been returned to his family in central New York.
Vermont-based Purple Hearts Reunited says the medal belonged to Cpl. Everett Jesse Proper, who was born in 1894 in a Catskill Mountains town. He served with the U.S. Army's 77th Infantry Division in France, where he was gassed in August 1918.
Proper survived the war. He died in 1981.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Proper's Purple Heart medal was found in a house near Lee, New Hampshire. Purple Hearts Reunited was contacted, and it tracked down Proper's great-nephew, Victor Swart of Skaneateles (skin-ee-AT'-luhs).
Purple Hearts Reunited founder Zachariah Fike returned the medal Sunday to the Swart family at their home 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Syracuse.