MEBANE, N.C. — Back in late December, Destiny Branson was doing a little soul searching. She spent the time learning about her Native American heritage and was talking with her husband as she ran her hand through the dirt on her grandparent's farm in Abeline, Texas. She wasn't paying much attention to the mud-caked piece of metal her fingertips slid over, but it would soon become the center of her focus.
"I had just picked it up, you know, noting thinking anything of it. I mean, it's a farm. There are pieces of metal, wiring, things like that all over the place," Destiny said.
"I looked at it and saw there was writing on it, and automatically knew what it was," she continued, "My grandfather, my father, and my brother have all been in the military."
After scrubbing the dirt off the dog tag, Destiny could read the letters stamped into the rusted metal: David L. Smiley.
The name will ring familiar to almost any alumni of Wake Forest University who attended between 1950-1990. The World War II veteran and WFU history professor made such an impression on people, in part, because he lived up to his namesake so thoroughly.
"My mother always said when she first met him, she thought it was a nickname because he was so funny," said Kay McKaughan, Dr. Smiley's daughter. "And then she learned it was his real name, so it was kind of a shock, but a shock in a good way."
The constantly curious, eternally upbeat and self-described 'Renaissance man' shared his quirky sense of humor with so people many on campus, he became famous for it. The outsized personality, however, slowly faded in the early 1990s as dementia began its slow, all-consuming march into Smiley's life. Kay took responsibility for caring for him as the disease took hold.
Smiley passed away in 2003.
"[Dementia] doesn’t get better, it just gets worse and worse," Kay said.
"He had a lot of friends," Kay continued, "and even as he was drifting into dementia, he was the same way, still laughing and joking, even up to the last months of his life."
Although Destiny never met Smiley, she began to piece together his story with the help of the internet and messages on social media. It started small, but the more she learned, the more insatiable her curiosity became.
"I wanted to figure it out. I wanted to tell the story. I had to know," she said, "I started asking family members, 'Who is this guy? How would these dog tags have ended up on my farm?'”
She was able to connect to members of Wake Forest University, who helped further piece together the puzzle of Smiley's life for Destiny. Despite her investigation, there's still not enough information about how the tag showed up in Texas. Smiley served briefly in the Lone Star state, was married there and earned his master's degree at Baylor University, but there is no concrete connection to her grandmother's farm in Hamby.
There are questions that may never fully find answers, but through her research, Destiny found a new purpose. Having personally experienced the importance dog tags hold for the family members of their owners, she wanted to return them to Smiley's descendants.
"I found all these things out but I couldn’t find Kay," Destiny said.
Again, WFU assisted in connecting Kay to Destiny.
A few weeks after first finding the tag on the dusty farm road, Destiny mailed them to their rightful owner in this letter:
What an honor to be the one to find this little piece of history! How funny how everything fell into place.
I am blessed beyond measure to be able to return to you, a piece of your father's legacy!
The letter continued:
It may always be a mystery with the questions of How, When, and Where. But most of all I am pleasantly surprised we were able to find you and return this sweet momento.
"The fact that she found it, the fact that she went through the trouble of Googling his name and found out where he worked and something about his career. That was amazing, it was just amazing," Kay said.
Kay, who has yet to clear away many of her father's old textbooks because they still carry sentimental value to her, added the tags to her special folder holding photos of her mother and father.
"It means a lot," Kay said, "that [Destiny] would do that."
While Kay was surprised when the token arrived in the mail, she is not surprised her father's life has continued to touch others.
"I think I can relate to Dr. Smiley," Destiny said, "Will I ever compare myself to Dr. Smiley? No, because he was a hero! His name should be celebrated for all things, through D-Day, and the Battle of the Bulge, and coming back and being able to marry the love of his life and continue on and becoming a professor. That right there in itself is what should be the story."
While Destiny never pinpointed what compelled her to go through all the trouble to return the rusty piece of metal. She suspected it had something to do with her namesake.
"It was important to me. I don't know, I was just led to do it," Destiny said, "I really believe it was just meant to happen."