SOUTH HADLEY — For over a decade, a Purple Heart Medal awarded to Private First Class Emile Chevalier, a Greenfield resident who was killed in action during World War II, was lost to his family.
That changed on Friday evening, when the Purple Hearts Reunited organization returned the medal to Chevalier’s niece, Sandra Canney, in a ceremony held at the South Hadley Public Library on the 75th anniversary of Chevalier’s death.
To have the medal back with the family is “absolutely marvelous,” Canney, a Granby resident, said. “He gave his life, and this is an honorary medal that indicates that he made the greatest sacrifice.”
Canney was joined by her husband, niece and nephew at the ceremony, in addition to members of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, American Legion, Sons of the American Legion, Military Order of the Purple Heart Department of Massachusetts and the Western Massachusetts Military Order of the Purple Heart Chapter 875.
The Purple Heart Medal is given to members of the U.S. military who have been wounded or killed in action on or after April 5, 1917.
Chevalier was just 20 years old when he died on Oct. 4, 1944, during combat operations in France, and Canney was never able to meet her uncle. But she recalls that her mother spoke of him often when she was a child, and the family “always felt Emile’s loss.”
“She used to talk about how silly he was, and how fun he was, and fun-loving,” Canney said, adding that the siblings enjoyed music and dancing. “Just that older brother that you could depend on, a great pal. So she missed him a great deal.”
As a teenager, Chevalier was a paperboy in Greenfield. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in March 1943, and served in the Army’s 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. He is now buried in the Epinal National Cemetery in France.
Canney knew that her uncle had received a Purple Heart, and recalled that her nephew, who also served in the military, once asked her about the Purple Heart that his great-uncle had been awarded. But by then, she could not tell him where it was.
Canney is not certain how the medal was lost, but she thinks that it passed through her family until her brother died in 2006. Around this time, she suspects that the medal was kept in a box of her brother’s personal belongings and sent elsewhere by someone who did not realize what it was.
The medal might have been lost even before 2006, Canney said, but for at least 13 years, no one in her family could locate it.
This changed when Purple Hearts Reunited, a Vermont-based organization that operates on donations, reached out to Canney to tell her that the medal had been found in Florida. Someone had found the medal at a tag sale and, realizing its significance, gave it to Purple Hearts Reunited.
“So now I will be able to tell my nephew where the Purple Heart is that belongs to his Great Uncle Emile, because I will receive it tonight,” Canney said shortly before the ceremony. “It just brings tears to my eyes, because it’s a very sentimental thing.”
Brian Willette, state commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, valor guard with Purple Hearts Reunited and a South Hadley resident, said that he has presided over several Purple Heart reunion ceremonies, but “never one so close to home,” noting Chevalier’s local ties.
“This new generation of the family, keeping alive the memory of their uncle I think has been a lifelong mission,” Willette said, “so I was honored to be a part of this.”
Now that she has been reunited with the medal, Canney said she plans to hang it on her wall in its shadowbox, where it won’t be lost again.
“It won’t go in a box where it’s unseen,” she said.
“When you hear these stories happen to other people, you say, ‘How marvelous, what a nice thing to happen,’” Canney said. “But in turn, when it happens to you, it just gives you goosebumps all over your body.”