Everett woman reunited with precious mementos found in trash

Diane Lucas wanted a fresh start and better weather when she moved to Everett, sight unseen, from Ringsted, a tiny town in Iowa, two years ago.

Her son, George, crammed what he could into a small U-Haul and they drove across the country, with pets and a car in tow.

Left behind in an Iowa storage unit were her other belongings: furniture, antiques and, it turned out, the flag that had been draped over the casket of her late husband, Robert D. Lucas, a Vietnam War veteran, along with his military decorations.

No problem, she figured. She’d get a job in Everett, pay the rent on the unit and get those back.

But there were problems.

“I had just had my knee replaced before we moved and things were not going well,” said Lucas, 56. “We didn’t get jobs right away.”

She couldn’t pay the fees for the storage unit.

“The contents were sold at auction, as they do,” she said. “I don’t think there was a bidding war. I had antique theater seats, table, buffet, chairs, mower, that kind of stuff.”

That stuff was hauled away. She didn’t care about that stuff, anyway. What she cared about was her husband’s casket flag and framed Purple Heart certificate.

She hoped that whoever bought the unit would somehow return the items to her, but hope waned over time.

Turns out the military items were tossed into the trash.

It also turns out a man going through the trash realized the importance.

“He put it on an Iowa website and then a friend of mine saw it,” Lucas said. “She texted me early in the morning on my birthday and said, ‘Is this yours by any chance?’”

That text was the best gift ever.

The friend was Robin Hansen, an officer with the Legion Auxiliary in Ringsted. She had been contacted by Joan Dinnel, a genealogy sleuth who lived 245 miles away in Iowa City. Dinnel had seen a Facebook picture of a flag that had been found in the trash and for some reason given to someone at the VFW Post in Cherokee, about 90 miles from Ringsted.

Dinnel traced Robert D. Lucas to the town of Ringsted and contacted Hansen at the Legion Auxiliary.

“Her and I started working together,” Dinnel said.

Long story short: through the kindness of Dinnel and other Facebook strangers, the wheels were set into motion to get the artifacts from Cherokee to send to Lucas, who was 1,615 miles away in Everett.

Lucas received a box with the cherished items a few weeks ago.

“They wouldn’t allow me to send them money,” she said. “I thought it was all gone. I don’t have many things of his.”

Still, it was bittersweet.

“What he sacrificed, and they threw it in the trash. They didn’t appreciate the value of what it meant. Not necessarily to me but to the nation.”

She met Robert on the Fourth of July in 1982. She was 23. He was 31. He was 6-feet-4 with blond hair and electric blue eyes.

“He was my dream man,” she said.

He had served two tours of Vietnam as an Army combat medic. “He told me his memories,” she said. “They weren’t good.”

She said he had post traumatic stress syndrome.

“He died in 1991 from a heart attack,” she said.

Their sons, George and Gordon, were 2 and 5 at the time.

Lucas went to college for a teaching degree and over the years held jobs in education as well as in retail. She never remarried.

In Everett, she stocked shelves at a Wal-Mart until disabled by degenerative joint disease.

She and her cat, Stripes, have made a home in a downtown Everett apartment complex, where she knits, makes jewelry and plays penny poker with her neighbors.

The flag will be mounted above her couch.

“I’m going to hang it up and be proud of it,” she said. “High enough so Stripes can’t reach it.”

Andrea Brown at 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @reporterbrown.

#Military awards rescued from trash are reunited with widow of #Vietnam vet. #PurpleHeart https://t.co/YOaks4SD1W pic.twitter.com/HL4kRU0X4d

— Andrea Brown (@reporterbrown) March 1, 2016