Erin Scott O’Brien says grandfather Charles Paddock brought back artifact with him from second world war
The ancient Roman grave marker recently found in the back yard of a New Orleans home had evidently been inherited and left there by the granddaughter of a US soldier who fought in Italy during the second world war.
In statements that all but solved an international historical mystery, Erin Scott O’Brien told two local media outlets that her grandfather, Charles Paddock Jr, kept the 1,900-year-old artifact in a display case at his home in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood before his death in 1986.
O’Brien said to Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana and the New Orleans magazine Preservation in Print she was not sure exactly how Paddock ended up with something reported missing from an Italian museum near Rome that lost most of its collection amid second world war bombing. But Paddock served in Italy with the US army during the war, married his wife Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to pursue a career as a musical voice teacher, O’Brien recounted.
It was also not uncommon for soldiers who fought in Europe during the second world war to come home with souvenirs.
