Published May 28, 2026, 11:58 AM EDT
The trove of personal keepsakes, nearly discarded in a home resale, date back to the 1950s.
One military widow's treasure could have been trash in Fayetteville, N.C., if not for a tug of curiosity in the mind of a busy real estate agent working to flip a cluttered town home. Elly Watts, a licensed real estate broker and owner of Watts Realty, nearly discarded decades of personal belongings that detailed a military couple's love story found in a house she bought. The belongings showed service to country and community, and signified a historical marker as part of an overseas war and the civil rights movement at home that followed. "I was just going through old boxes and found all of this stuff," Watts told Military.com. "I was going to have my contractors throw it all away, but something just told me to take a look." What she found in a shed attached to the town house was a trove of pictures, love letters, keepsakes, military awards and memorabilia belonging to the late Mary Perry Allen, a young, African-American U.S. Army wife to her late husband, retired Maj. Warren Allen, a Korean War veteran and Ranger Hall of Fame inductee.
Late U.S. Army Major Warren Allen, was a decorated Korean War veteran and Ranger Hall of Fame inductee before his death in 1973 (Elly Watts).
