Photos courtesy of Bill Price
By Matt de Simone
How does a veteran’s shadowbox containing all of his medals, bars, and patches end up in a waste bin? This may be a question that a family in Salem will never know.
A shadowbox containing photos, accolades, and medals of United States Air Force (USAF) veteran Nelson Glass was found in Buchanan by crew workers with C&S Disposal last month. Glass, who passed away in 2009, served as a military police officer for the USAF and also ranked as Staff Sergeant E6 with the U.S. Army National Guard during the Vietnam War.
When the C&S crew recovered the shadowbox, they didn’t want to add it to the waste collection, according to Glass’s nephew, Steve Palmer. The crew brought the shadowbox to Buchanan’s Town Hall hoping there would be someone who could help find its home. The town contacted Bill Price, co-founder of Sirens & Salutes, a local non-profit committed to honoring and memorializing first responders and veterans.
After doing some digging, Price contacted Palmer, set up a meeting place, and gave Glass’s shadowbox back to his family.
In a recent interview, Palmer recalled the mystery of the Salem resident’s shadowbox discovered in a pile of trash miles away from where Glass lived.
“It’s quite a journey. Evidently, there was a house being remodeled in the Town of Buchanan. Whoever cleaned it out threw the shadowbox in the trash. We (the family) have no idea because (my uncle) was born, raised, and lived his whole life in the City of Salem. We don’t know if he may have given to somebody and they left in the house. We have no idea.”
Photo courtesy of Oakey
Price and his wife, Cindy, found an obituary for Nelson Glass published by Oakey’s Funeral Service in Salem in 2009. The Prices called the funeral home inquiring about the Glass obituary/shadowbox. Staff at the funeral home laid a note on the desk of one of Oakey & Son – Salem’s Funeral Service Licensee Jeff Wolfe, who is a friend of Palmer’s.
“It just so happens, a good friend of mine, Jeff Wolfe, that works at Oakey & Son, had a note on his desk and he called me because they previously held the funeral for my mom. Nelson Glass’s nephew. Michael Glass, is my stepdad. So, (Wolfe) called me and asked if the name Nelson Glass was familiar to me. I said, yeah, absolutely I knew him. Wolfe said, I have a phone number from Sirens & Salutes that they found a shadowbox in a trash can in Buchanan. So, I contacted Bill Price and probably, about half an hour to 45 minutes later, we met at the Daleville Kroger. He gave me the shadowbox and took a picture there.”
Following the retrieval of the shadowbox, Palmer gave the shadowbox to Glass’s niece, Becky Ayers, who is the closest relative Palmer contacted.
Palmer is thankful that the shadowbox is recovered and in good hands after showing up seemingly out of nowhere.
“My initial thought was, he fought and served for our country,” Palmer said. “I just couldn’t see how somebody could just throw that in the trash. The rough estimate between his patches and his uniform badge, there’s 8 to10 medals he earned during his service that wound up in that shadowbox. If those gentlemen (from C&S Disposal) hadn’t taken it upon themselves to drive it up to Buchanan Town Hall, none of this would have ever happened.”
To learn more about Sirens & Salutes, visit sirensandsalutes.org.
