Dog tag restores a fatherly connection

Jennifer Yakes had just woken up Thursday and didn’t know what to think when a friend texted her that somebody had found her father’s dog tags.

“It’s in the Beacon,” insisted the friend.

They were correct. The Thursday Beacon published a photo of the dog tag with the name “Donald Yakes” that had been found some years ago, quite possibly in the Dave’s Marketplace parking lot. The person who brought the dog tag into the paper asked not to be identified and confessed that they had been meaning to seek out the owner for years but never got around to it.

Jennifer couldn’t help but remark on the timing of the Beacon picture. The day before was her father’s birthday, an occasion that both she and her mother remembered. Yakes, who was in the Army and served during the Korean War, died in 1995.

Before his death, Jennifer asked if there was something she might have of his. Her mother parted with the dog tag, telling her not to lose it. To make things fair, she gave Jennifer’s older brother, also named Donald, her husband’s uniform. A second dog tag was later found in the uniform.

The family owned the Slice of Italy Bakery, and Dave’s Marketplace was one of their customers. Jennifer believes the dog tag slipped from around her neck when she was bending over to make a delivery or while she was stocking shelves. That had to be in the late ’90s, after her father died, she said.

For a long time, she didn’t tell her mother that she had lost the tag, hoping that it would be found. Finally, she arrived at the conclusion it was gone for good.

On Thursday Jennifer, who runs a computer repair and troubleshooting company based in Gateway Plaza and plays drums in a band, wore a wide smile that even became wider when she slipped the dog tag once again around her neck.