Tag: 36th infantry division

Artifact Spotlight–Italian Coins

This small collection of coins was donated in 2001 and is part of the current museum staff’s ongoing effort to catalog previously unrecorded artifacts in the museum collection. The coins only had a donation date and that they were associated with a 36th Infantry Division soldier but they still have an interesting story to tell.

The top left coin is a 3 Grana coin dated 1810 and came from Naples, Italy.

The top right coin is a 3 Tornesi coin dated 1648 and came from the Neapolitan Republic.

The 2 bottom coins are both variations of the same Roman Republic coin and date from 200-100 BCE.

The front of the coins have Janus, the two faced god for whom January is named.

The back of the coins have a prow of a ship and this one has the visible letters ‘RD”, possibly for TVRD. The coin is a very thick bronze, 40mm. The other Roman Republic coin appears to be all copper.

The 3 older coins all have wear consistent with being buried. While we don’t know the exact story of these coins it is easy to image a 36th soldier resting in a field after the difficult landings at Salerno on September 9th 1943 and seeing something glint in the sunlight and picking up the 3 grana coin. Or during the long, wet winter of 1943/44 our soldier is digging a foxhole, trying to get a little cover from the constant artillery bombardment and finding one of the Roman coins buried in the dirt.

We don’t know why the soldier chose to keep these old coins; possibly as souvenirs to send home to a kid brother or sister or maybe his own young child, or maybe as a memento for his own collection or a sweetheart or wife back home. Did he feel a connection to those long ago Italians who had lived and maybe fought and died on the same soil? Was he injured? Did he make it back home or were these part of the effects sent back to the family of a fallen soldier. We will likely never know the answers to these questions but we can imagine the soldier and see him in films like “A Walk in the Sun” or “The Story of G.I. Joe” both of which were based on the 36th Infantry Division in WWII and we can remember his service and sacrifice told through the objects he left behind.

Cataloging Stories

We haven’t done a blog post in awhile and today while cataloging documents and artifacts from the WWI collection of Sgt. Levi Cox we came across an interesting story.

Sgt. Cox served with Company H, 142nd Infantry Regiment during the “Great War”, which later became known as WWI. Among the items from Sgt. Cox was a ship’s paper  from his journey home in May 1919 aboard the USS Pueblo.  This small booklet was given out to the soldiers on May 25, 1919. It includes the church schedule,  small inspirational paragraphs and the following story:


These two soldiers from the 142nd Infantry Regiment who had survived training, the flu epidemic, combat, and 8 months of occupation had perished on their way home. In searching through our WWI service cards there were a couple of interesting parallels between the soldiers:

  • both men were older, 32 for Hovey and 30 for Strong
  • both men had no immediate next of kin listed. Hovey had a friend and Strong had his brother-in-law

Harry Hovey had been born in Brownsville and was living in Mansfield in Tarrant County when he was drafted. Joseph Strong was born in Paris, Tx and was living in Brice in Hall County when he enlisted.

Levi Cox survived the war and kept letters written to his future wife and a small number of other souvenirs to remember his time spent in the “Great War”, a gas mask ( he was gassed during the war, his jacket, his discharge papers,his identification card, a pass to Paris to see the 36th Division play in the football final, and a souvenir map. That he saved this particular ships booklet which mentions the death of a likely friend ( Pvt. Strong who was in the same Company) indicates that the war, and the death of his comrades had impacted his life.

The T-Patch on his jacket is very interesting and likely made by an older French woman he was housed with during the occupation.

Levi Cox during training:

This is just one of many thousands of stories of Texas soldiers who served their county during WWI. As we approach the Centennial of the US involvement in the Great War we hope to bring you more of anecdotes.