The effort to reunite deceased veterans with their headstones and plaques has been successful.
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 539 commander Bill Goodner has been contacting families for the past month when some 30 granite headstones and bronze plaques were found at the old Shurden Funeral Home.
“We still have eight or ten left,” Goodner said Friday while setting the plaque for Leonard Williams at his Westlawn Cemetery grave site. Williams, an Army veterans of World War II, died in 2002 and has a monument at Westlawn. The official bronze plaque is set at the foot of the grave.
He said four of the markers were duplicates, leftover after corrected markers had been delivered. Others have had veterans located around the area including Okmulgee, Grayson, Weleetka, New Sonora and Okemah.
“Yesterday I notified a family of one that dated back to 1987. There were two sisters, both in their 80s.”
Goodner has taken the job of pouring the concrete base and setting the bronze markers himself. Earlier this week he set one at Hannah.
“No veteran should be left out. They did their duty when they were called and this is the least we can do for them.”
Once the Williams plaque was in place, Goodner held a moment of tribute thanking him for his service.

See the original story when the veterans' markers were discovered HERE.