A WWII soldier's coat was lost for years—until one woman makes a choice - Newsweek

A routine trip to look for Halloween costumes took an unexpected turn when a woman in Indiana discovered a coat worn by a soldier during World War II.

Zuleika King Rivera was browsing at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in Fort Wayne, searching for outfits for her children, when a coat priced at $9.99 with a tag reading "Halloween Jacket" caught her eye.

"When I saw the coat, I knew it was something special," Rivera, 29, told Newsweek. "Inside was a name: 'Willibey.' There was also military identification information, including the last four digits of his Army service number."

Rivera, a U.S. Army veteran, felt compelled to find out more about the owner of the coat.

"I come from a military family," she said. "My husband is a veteran, and military service runs throughout his family as well. So I've always had a lot of respect, passion, and empathy for service members and veterans."

As soon as she saw that name, it became more than just an old military uniform in a thrift store.

"That was somebody. Somebody wore that coat. Somebody served in it. Somebody had a family who may not even know it was sitting there," she said.

"I just had this immediate feeling: I have to buy this. I have to figure out who this man was and, if his family is still out there, I have to try to give it back."

Returning home, Rivera made it her mission to find out more.

"I spent about four and a half hours researching him, and I mean really digging," she said. "There wasn't a ton of easily accessible information online, so I had to start putting together tiny pieces until they formed a bigger picture."

An important clue she had was his Army service number, written in neat handwriting alongside the surname "Willibey" on the coat's collar.

By combining those pieces of information with different keywords, Rivera was able to locate archived documents and records. She learned the previous owner's full name was Gilbert Alton Willibey and that he was from Indiana.

Gilbert was born on April 8, 1917, and died in 2001. He was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 24 on April 15, 1941, and served during World War II. Records showed he spent time in South Africa among other locations.

The coat itself offered clues about Gilbert's military service.

"It still had the patches and markings that told pieces of Gilbert's military story, including indications of approximately six years of service, three years overseas, and that he was a corporal," Rivera said.

After returning home in 1946, he met and married Dorothy, and together they had a son, Bruce.

Eventually, however, Rivera's investigation led her to an obituary. Bruce had recently passed away.

"I remember thinking, 'Oh my God, this is them,' and feeling guilty that I couldn't get to Bruce before he passed," Rivera said.

Still, she refused to give up hope of finding a living relative and soon discovered Bruce had a surviving daughter, Meghan Stewart. Rivera reached out on Facebook but received no response.

That was when Rivera realized that, remarkably, she and Stewart shared a mutual friend. She contacted the acquaintance, who then got in touch with Stewart on her behalf. Eventually, phone numbers were exchanged and the two began talking.

"She told me she didn't know very much about her grandfather's military history," Rivera said. "I gladly shared everything I had learned."

Exactly how the coat ended up in the thrift store remains a mystery, though Rivera says she and Stewart have a theory about what may have happened after Gilbert passed away.

"There was an estate sale afterward. We believe the coat may have gotten mixed in with other belongings during that process and was eventually sold or donated," she said.

The coat had been missing from the family for roughly two decades. After talking by phone, Rivera arranged to meet Stewart and return it.

"When she stepped out of the car that day, I could immediately see it on her face. You could tell she was trying so hard to hold back tears, and I understood it," she said.

"I kept thinking about my own grandfather. He passed away from cancer a long time ago, and I would give anything to randomly find something of his today, something he wore, something he touched, something that carried a piece of his life with it," Rivera said. "So when I was standing there holding somebody else's grandfather's coat, I couldn't separate myself from that feeling."

Though it felt like a mission accomplished for Rivera, it was about more than solving a mystery.

"The fulfillment wasn't really in solving the mystery. It was knowing that those hours of searching resulted in another human being getting something back that connected her to her grandfather," Rivera said.

"I got to bring someone a piece of their family back. Something that had somehow left their family more than two decades earlier had finally found its way home."

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Marc Vargas and Tony Phillips.