It took a weekend for two Laclede Countians to do what the U. S. Army failed to do for over half a century.

Kenny Waterworth and Checita Hoke found the great-niece of Army Cpl. Charles Ray Patten, who was declared missing in action in 1950. The Army declared Patten dead in 1953 at the end of the Korean War, but his remains, if found, have never been identified.

The Army has recovered the unidentified remains of hundreds of soldiers from the Korean War from North Korea. Those remains are in Hawaii, where they await identification by a DNA test.

The Army has been unable to find the families of about 2,000 soldiers from that war, according to Harold Davis, a Korean War veteran in North Carolina who is one of three people in the country actively seeking the families.

Without testing a relative of the soldier’s mother, the mitochondrial DNA test can’t be performed, so the remains can’t be identified, Davis told The Daily Record recently.

All that was known of Patten was his name, rank, service number and unit, and that he listed Laclede County as his home when he went into the Army.
Waterworth read an article about the search for Patten’s family in the Jan. 16 edition of The Daily Record.

“I read the story and thought, man, there has to be some of his people around here,” he said. He called his friend and fellow genealogy buff, Hoke, and the pair went to work.

Hoke discovered an obituary for Patten’s mother, Edith Patten, whose maiden name was Medley. “She was born here in Lebanon and is buried in Lebanon Cemetery,” he said. Waterworth started looking for Medleys.

He contacted Ray Medley Jr., whose father used to own a prominent drugstore in town. Ray Medley Jr. inquired among his family members and came up empty.

“He said, ‘I don’t think it’s from our bunch,’” Waterworth said. Waterworth and Hoke were convinced the Medley line was the key, Waterworth said. “I asked him, what were some of your uncles’ names? “He had a great-uncle, Jerry Medley, who is also buried in Lebanon Cemetery,” Waterworth said.

Edith Patten was Jerry Medley’s daughter. Tracing that line led the sleuths to a woman in Kansas City who is the great-niece of Cpl. Patten. That woman was contacted, and by Tuesday her DNA was on the way to the Army. It’s unknown how long it might take to compare the sample against those taken from the remains of the soldiers, Waterworth said.

Unbeknownst to Waterworth, another local genealogy wizard, Betsy Scoby, was also investigating and discovered the same great-niece later in the week. Scoby told The Daily Record Thursday she wasn’t surprised to discover someone else had already found Cpl. Patten’s relative.

“That’s one of the things about this community that makes me proud,” Scoby said. “When it comes to finding lost relatives, they’re very good about it.”
If Cpl. Patten’s remains are identified, Waterworth hopes he can be brought home to Laclede County and buried with his folks, he said.

“I just got kind of a soft spot in my heart for a veteran, especially one who gave his life for his country,” said Waterworth, who served in Vietnam.

He and Hoke are also inquiring about another Korean War soldier’s family. Cpl. Andrew B. Brown, from Wright County, is another soldier who never made it back from the war.

“Once you get into this, it can be kind of an obsession,” Waterworth said.

Anyone interested in helping to search for the lost families of Korean War soldiers can call Davis at (910) 791-2333 or e-mail him at hgdavis@bell-south.net.

More information about missing Korean War veterans and the identification or remains can be found at www.jpac.pacom.mil/.

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