Plano sisters and cousin receive their grandfather’s WWI medal from Kendall County

For some reason, Louis A. Sears of Plano never received his World War I service medal from Kendall County.

His granddaughters speculate that it was Sears’ passion for baseball that kept him away from the Sept. 25, 1919, celebration in front of the historic Kendall County Courthouse in Yorkville, where the medals were awarded to the county’s returning servicemen.

Sears played third base on a local baseball team, and his granddaughters believe he was playing in a game that day, but are not sure.

Whatever the reason, Sears did not get his medal in 1919, but more than 100 years later that has been rectified.

Two sisters and their cousin, all from Plano, received their late grandfather’s medal Feb. 7 during a presentation at the Kendall County Board meeting.

Kendall County Circuit Court Clerk Matthew Prochaska presented the medal to sisters Anne and Barb Sears, along with their cousin Linda Hess.

Prochaska recently discovered a trove of about 60 of the medals that were left over from the ceremony that have been in a box among the circuit clerk’s records for a very long time.

The clerk published a list of the names of the 13 Kendall County service members who never received their medals, including Sears.

Anne Sears said she saw a story about the medals in the Plano Record and recognized her grandfather’s name on the list.

Louis Sears was a second lieutenant and an aviator in the U.S. Army Air Service, the forerunner of the Army Air Corps and ultimately the U.S. Air Force.

“He spend most of the war in San Antonio, Texas,” Anne Sears said, her grandfather providing flight instruction to pilots before finally being sent overseas.

“By the time he got to an aerodrome in France the Armistice had been signed,” Anne Sears said.

Louis Sears was born in 1889 and lived in Plano his whole life. After the war, he started a farmers’ cooperative. He died in 1951.

The names of the other 12 World War I veterans whose medals may be claimed by descendants from the Circuit Clerk’s Office include Capt. Andrew C. Birkland, Paul Canniff, Harold R. Heap, Harry Holverson, William B. Johnson, Harvey L. Nelson, Chauncey I. Pecoy, Louis P. Schultz, Arthur Sebby and 2nd Lt. Lewis H. Steward.

Descendants of these veterans have until June 30 to call the court clerk at 630-553-4183. After that date, the clerk’s office will turn the unclaimed medals over to the Unclaimed Property Division of the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office, which has an office that helps reunite medals with veterans or their family members.

Questions may be directed to mprochaska@kendallcountyil.gov.