'He's like some ghost': Family gifted items from World War I vet found in Port Huron home

While doing renovations after her Port Huron home flooded in 2014, Mary Jo Perkins discovered a weathered box in the drop ceiling in her basement. 

Inside the box were a collection of personal items, photographs and postcards from World War I. The box was slightly water damaged, but the items inside were in "pristine" condition, Perkins said.

After looking through the items in the box, Perkins determined it belonged to a man named Frank Tallant, a patrolman in the U.S. Army who lived in Port Huron for about 50 years.

Perkins tried for several years to get the box back to Tallant's family. She tried donating it to Port Huron Museums, but officials there told her to contact Charles A. Hammond American Legion Post 8. 

Her initial call to the post didn't net any results. 

"I just don't want these men to be forgotten," Perkins said.

Several years went by, but the box remained in the back of her mind. In 2019, after the post celebrated its 100th anniversary, she decided it was time to try again to find Tallant's family.

A member of the post knew relatives of Tallant. After a few phone calls were made, it was finally arranged for the box to go to his family.

John Tallant and his wife Mary, of Kimball Township, sat at a table in the post this week with Perkins, talking about the man none of them knew. The weathered box sat on a nearby table.

"He's like some ghost," John Tallant said.

Frank Tallant was his grandfather's brother, John Tallant said. He was one year old when Frank Tallant died, and everything he knew about the man was learned from other relatives.

John Tallant said receiving the box was a surprise.

"This was a shock to me," he said.

John Tallant and Perkins spent time looking at the various items in the box — bank statements, books, photographs and postcards, a Western Union telegram from 1919, and several items brought back from the war, including a lighter and a German belt buckle.

"It was ancestry in the making because it just came out of the blue," John Tallant said.

Perkins, who always planned to get the items back to the family, said she was ecstatic to finally meet them.

"Even though I found it, I didn't feel that it was mine to keep," Perkins said. "It needed to be with the family and it needed to be with Post 8."

While the box was given to the family, several of the items were given to the post to display in their museum of artifacts from foreign wars. The post will be displaying an American Red Cross infantry bag, a lighter, belt buckle from a German soldier and an infantryman's handbook.

John Tallant said he plans to keep the rest of the items in the family. 

Who was Frank Tallant?

Frank E. Tallant was born Sept. 8, 1886, in Woodstock, Ontario, according to his obituary in a 1952 edition of the Port Huron Times Herald. 

During World War I, he served as a patrolman for the U.S. Army.

After the war, Frank Tallant served as a deputy with the St. Clair County Sheriff Department under Sheriff Hugh Stringer. In February of 1933, he joined the Port Huron Police Department.

An avid baseball fan, he played with the farm club of the St. Louis Cardinals, the Knights of Columbus and the Port Huron Independents in the City League.

His wife, Mary Tallant, died in August 1949. In July 1952, Frank Tallant reported for duty with the police department at 9 a.m., his obituary states. Shortly after, he suffered from a heart attack near the corner of Electric Avenue and Conner Street. He was transported to Port Huron Hospital where he died shortly after 10 a.m. He was 65 years old.

He was survived by a daughter, grandson and a brother.

Contact Brian Wells at (810) 357-8668 or bwells@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bmwellsphoto.