The family of a Middletown man got a unique gift this Christmas – his World War II helmet.
And it came from an unlikely place – a group of Idaho high school students.
Anthony Malone of Middletown, Conn. was 83 when he died eight years ago.
But the 11th grade international students at Vineyard Christian Home School Co-op in Boise know about him.
They know Malone served in World War II as a medic.
They know he was stationed in Europe -- likely France, Italy and North Africa.
They started their investigation from a peculiar place: Malone's Army helmet, in which he wrote his name, company and Army serial number.
Their teacher, Dennis Mansfield, had owned the helmet for nearly 40 years.
Mansfield got the helmet in 1971 as a gag gift from his father when he was living in Michigan.
When he began teaching this year's international history class, he was looking for ways to make history fun.
He hit on the helmet. So he gave his students a mission: Find out about the man who wrote his name in the leather lining.
For two weeks, they Googled, read a newspaper obit and studied the military unit -- 16th Battalion Medical Detachment -- to which Malone belonged.
Michael Page, 17, discovered through online and other sources that the helmet was not World War I issue, as Mansfield had thought, but likely one used in the late 1930s or early 1940s or was possibly British-made.
Local
Lanae Langdon, 17, typed Malone's serial number into Google and discovered he had been in the Army.
Malone joined the service in 1941, before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into the war.
Along the journey, the students learned something else: History is real. And learning about it is fun.
"It's like bringing history back to our time," said Austin Townend, 17, of Boise.
Students also discovered the whereabouts of Malone's family, when they found his obituary online.
Family members didn't know what to make of the initial calls from students. But as they came to know the students and Mansfield, they embraced the work the students had done.
"I think it is awesome that someone found his name in the helmet," said Diane Morin, Malone's daughter, who lives in Bolton.
Malone -- everyone called him Tony -- was like many World War II vets and didn't talk much about his war experience, family members say.
When kids are young, they just see their father as a father, said Lorraine Decker, 56, Malone's daughter, who lives in New Jersey. But the research by Vineyard students helped her understand more about her father.
Malone's family filled in some of the blanks the students hadn't learned about his life.
He told his daughter Lorraine he joined the Army because he thought it was the only way he'd ever see Europe.
And he saw a lot of Europe. Records show his unit was in Sicily, mainland Italy and France.
Decker said her father named her Lorraine after the French region of Alsace-Lorraine.
Malone received a Purple Heart, though his daughter Diane isn’t sure why. "I'm guessing he was injured helping someone else," Morin said.
After the war, Malone returned to his hometown of Middletown to work for the Goodyear Rubber Co., cutting the soles for sneakers, and later for Pratt & Whitney, the aircraft engine company, working as a sheet-metal welder. Morin remembers him going to work at 3 a.m.
He helped raise a family and put his daughters through college, and he laid some money aside to help his grandchildren. "He was a hard worker," Morin said.
The history students hope a relative can come to Boise, meet them and receive the helmet.
They are looking to see if they can cobble together frequent-flyer miles to help bring a relative to Boise. Family members are discussing it, but they hope some of the students can go east and meet the family.
Either way, Malone's family says having the helmet is special to them and their mother.
"It would mean so, so much," Decker said. "I think it is wonderful."
