Finding a Purple Heart

A Return Home

By BOB GUNTER

It was nothing unusual hearing my phone ring early in the morning, but what I heard on checking the call was unusual. I was surprised when the caller said, “I don’t have a answer – I have a question, please call me.”

I dialed the Sandpoint number and Jim Livingston answered the phone and he told me this intriguing story.

“Some time ago, I was up at Bonners Ferry and thought I would hit some of the yard sales. I bought a couple of boxes containing various items and returned to Sandpoint. While going through one box I noticed a blue ribbon. I examined it and found attached to it a World War One Purple Heart medal. On the back was inscribed the name, Tillman N. Sandaker.

“I Googled his name and found that he had lived in Bonners Ferry. I served in the US Marines and I felt the medal should go to a member of his family. I called you to ask if you would help me find if he has family still living in Bonners Ferry.”

The search began with a call to Sue Kemmis, curator of the your Museum, who referred me to George Kalb. It was though George that a family member was found and contacted.

Her name is Pat Poulton and she is the daughter of Tillman Sandaker. I called Pat and she shared the following about her father. “He was born in 1892 and he was 98 years of age when he died. He was a good man and a veteran of WWI.

He graduated from the eighth grade and came out to Montana with some relations when he was 14 years old; later his parents moved out. He was sent to France near the end of WWI and was wounded in the hips by shrapnel. After returning home, he and my Mother, Hazel Hium, had five children. He came to Bonners Ferry in 1969 and he worked until he was almost 80.”

“My father died on Sept. 22, 1990 and is buried in Bonners Ferry. There were a lot of veterans at his funeral and I recall them singing, ‘God Bless America,’ which was very fitting because my father was very patriotic. He and a friend went back to France and marched under the Arc de Triomphe at the time France invited all the veterans to come back to be honored. I still have the walking cane the French gave him”

Pat said that she has her father’s Purple Heart ribbon but has never seen his medal. Thanks to the efforts of Oz Osborn, a veteran, and VFW District One Commander, Bill Stevens, this will change at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 22.

Representatives of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and the American Legion will meet at the Boundary County Museum and return the Purple Heart of Tillman Sandaker to his daughter Pat Poulton. The family and friends of Pat are invited to attend.