104-year-old Massachusetts woman receives brother's dog tags 83 years after he died during WWII
After 83 years, a 104-year-old Beverly, Massachusetts, woman finally has her brother's dog tags after his plane crashed during World War II in 1943. Beverly Veterans' Services doesn't know how they ended up in a file that came to their office, but they spent years trying to reunite the tags with the veteran's family.
Dorothy Stewart lost her brother Bernard Parnell when she was just 21. "First off he was handsome," said Stewart. "The girls used to chase him all of the time."
He joined the Navy following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and headed to Florida for training to be a radioman on an aircraft.
"It had engine trouble and it crashed off the coast of Florida," said Stewart.
She says her brother handed a life jacket to the pilot, Lt. James Digh.
"The pilot was the only survivor. My brother's body was never found," said Stewart.
Her brother's dog tags remained lost until Ken McKay opened a folder. The assistant director of Veterans' Services in Beverly was combing through a tote of records dating back to the Spanish-American War.
"This is the fourth or fifth maybe dog tag that we've pulled out of these files," said McKay.
For four to five years, the tags hung on a frame in his office while he pursued answers.
"Researching ancestry," McKay said, "I was able to view the application for the headstone for Bernard in 1972."
The application was submitted by Dorothy Stewart. "Due to her age, I initially just searched for an obituary," said McKay.
Instead, he found an article written about her five straight world championship victories in indoor rowing. She was competing in an age group she calls 95 plus. She stopped competing in the event once COVID hit.
"With that, I called the YMCA, and explained who I am. They thought I was a scammer at first," said McKay.
They eventually helped to connect the two, with the tags being returned to her in a ceremony at the YMCA on Sept. 29.
"I broke down and cried. I just held it after I kissed it," said Stewart. "Who would have dreamed after all of this time?"
It's the closest she has been to her brother since 1943.
