When faced with a big decision recently, Kelly Holloman decided to do what was right.
She had recently purchased a 53 foot shipping container and discovered that there was still stuff inside. Instead of throwing away the contents of the container, she decided that she would find the family of the previous owner, Vance Treuil, and return the belongings.
“We purchased the building from the lady across the street from us. We knew her late husband but not his family. When we got it, she told us there was a lot of trash in it and that we could just dump it out,” explained Kelly. “My nine year old was looking in it one day and came inside in tears. He said, ‘Mama, this has Mr. Vance’s medals from the war in it and other stuff.’ Sure enough, there were medals from Dessert Storm, pictures from the war, brief cases with documents, and several older items that could’ve possibly been family heirlooms.”
When she found the precious items, Kelly went to work to find Mr. Vance’s family and return the belongings to them.
“I couldn’t possibly see throwing items away that would mean so much to someone; just because it was trash to one doesn’t mean it would be to another. If my father’s belongings were trashed somewhere, I would hope that there would be somebody kind enough to let me know,” stated Kelly. “I got online and found Mr. Vance’s obituary from last year and messaged any and everybody I could with the names listed. On September 24, a girl messaged me and told me that she was Vance’s daughter. I let her know that we had purchased a storage shed that contained a lot of contents that belonged to her father and that I thought they may want them. She had her uncle call my on September 25. He asked if they could come up on Sunday, September 27. All of Vance’s siblings came that Sunday and were able to get a lot of his things.”
A lot of the items in the storage unit were some of the things that the family had been looking for since Vance passed away in April 2019. Naturally, the family was very excited about being about to recover some of the lost items.
“He served in the military, and my father served in the military. There were a lot of personal items from my family and my father that my brother had in his possession. When he passed away, we were hoping that we would be able to get all those personal items returned to the family, but for whatever reason, that did not happen. We were extremely heartbroken when we weren’t able to recover those items,” recalled Eric Treuil, Vance’s brother. “When the neighbor, Mrs. Kelly, called and told us that she purchased a container and that it was full of a lot of my brother’s personal items, we had so much joy to be able to recover some of those items. Everything that was in that container was like my brother’s personal history to the last 50 years of his life and was family heirlooms. We still haven’t found everything we were looking for, but what we did find was able to bring a little more closure to us.”
Along with his family, Vance’s ex-wife, Nichol Kadler, also came to help the family go through the belongings. She was able to help identify the different items and explain where they came from.
“I walked in there and was able to let them know what some really important stuff was,” stated Nichol. “I found his dog tags. We found his records and a lot of his service stuff.”
After being able to recover some of the missing items, the family thinks highly of Kelly.
“She’s a good neighbor. She was awesome, because she didn’t have to contact us. We never would’ve known these items existed,” said Eric. “She felt like that was the right thing to do. We applaud her so much for that. For Kelly to go out of her way and work on a time frame with us for us to come and get the stuff, that’s a Good Samaritan going above and beyond.”
Although the family is extremely grateful for everything they were able to get back thanks to the caring nature of Kelly Holloman, there are still some family items that they are hoping to find. If anyone finds any military items with the last name Treuil on them, please contact the family at et@lachialtha.org and let them know.
