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© The Guthrie Daily Leader
Sunday, September 10, 1939
For 21 years, Oscar Roberts, Guthrie World war veteran, had had little curiosity concerning the contents of a small, wooden box, entrusted to him by a "buddy" killed two days afterwards on a battlefield in France.
But Saturday it was a different story.
Letters from judges in Coal county, Ill., and Harding county, Ohio, received last week requested the 46-year-old ex-service man to ascertain if a will, made by "Stephen D. Tossey" in 1876, was among the contents of the box.
Roberts explained he previously "hadn't paid much attention to papers in the box" curing its many years in his custody.
"I looked after I got the letters, and there was the will all right," Roberts asserted. "I mailed it to Lucy Maudy, in care of the Coal county court clerk, as they requested."
He admitted he doesn't know why the document was desired.
"The will conveyed some land back there, and all the letters stated was that the Coal county courthouse burned in 1886, and that all the records were destroyed. About all I know is that the judges said in the letters that they wanted to clear up the title, and get the records straightened out."
He was informed the will would be returned if he desired to keep it as a memoir. Roberts said he made the request.
"I never have even read it, but I think I will when they send it back," he declared. "I'm also going to look through all the other papers in the box."
He explained he came in possession of the box, about 15 inches long, and eight inches wide, under these circumstances.
"There was a fellow named J. G. Mumford in my outfit - the 23rd infantry, second division - and we got to talking one day, and wondering if we'd get back alive."
"He told me that he was going to write to his sister and tell her that if anything happened to him, he wanted her to send me that box. That was in June, 1918, while we were at Meaux, France, and he was killed a couple of days later."
Roberts said he had forgotten the conversation, but was reminded when he arrived home in October, 1919, to find the box there.
"It had a lot of papers in it, but I never was interested in finding out just what they were before."
