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His discharge papers and letters of commendation from the Army, showing he'd served in the dramatic rescue of Westerners from Peking, China, during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.

His divorce papers, showing his wife, Luna, was leaving him, and taking their children with her.

And the letter he wrote to his sister before he drank whiskey and carbolic acid in a rooming house near 10th and O and died in its hallway, despite the best efforts of a doctor who pumped the veteran's stomach and tried artificial respiration.

“I am going to quit the world,� Joab Jones wrote, “but don't you think hard for I will try and meet you in heaven, so good bye.�

The 27-year-old had ended up in Lincoln just two weeks earlier, selling stove polish. He was buried in Wyuka Cemetery on Nov. 2, 1902, three days after his death, in a grave that remains unmarked and, on this Memorial Day, unheralded.

His memory would have stayed buried if a Nebraska State Historical Society researcher hadn't stumbled upon it five years ago while helping a patron look up turn-of-the-century Halloween traditions.

Something about the serendipity of his discovery -- and the rough lines of the young man's story -- struck Matt Piersol. So he started his methodical process of filling in the blanks, scouring census information, paging through newspapers, requesting military records.

“It's strange to me that all of this would be completely unknown and then you find one fact and then it leads to others,� he said. “And all of this that was not known is, all of a sudden, right there.�

The story of Joab Jones.

“Nobody had spoken his name for 100 years.�

* * *

Joab Jones was born Oct. 30, 1875, and raised in McDonough County, Illinois, on cropland 40 miles east of the Mississippi River.

His family had some money, Piersol said. They had been farmers for decades. After his death, Jones was described by the newspaper in Macomb, Illinois, as well-known in that city. His friends elaborated for the Lincoln Star.

“From the time Joab was 8 years old his father would take him out on drinking bouts, delighting to see his son stagger like an old toper.�

They also reported that, as a young man, Jones blew through $15,000 his mother had left him.

“He pursued reckless living,� Piersol said. “And then he vowed he would make it up somehow by entering the service.�

He was 24 when he enlisted in 1899. He stood just over 5-foot-7 and had brown eyes and auburn hair, according to military records Piersol found. He ended up in Manila with the 14th Infantry Regiment, taking part in the Philippine Insurrection -- one of the U.S. military's first missions into foreign territory.

“It was truly horrific in terms of suffering, casualties and loss of life,� Piersol said. “Fighting adversaries they could not see in jungles and swamps, the heat and malaria were enough to drive many U.S. troops insane.�

The Army wasn't finished with Jones. From Manila, the 14th was sent to Peking, where a growing movement of Chinese traditionalists -- deemed Boxers -- were rebelling against modernization, targeting the influx of Western merchants and missionaries into their country, and the cultural change they carried.

By August 1900, hundreds of Americans and Europeans were holed up in their district of the capital city.

“Outside the walls were thousands of Boxers,� Piersol said, “baying for their blood.�

What followed was a daring rescue and escape made famous in a painting that would hang in VFW chapters across the country; Piersol remembers seeing it in his hometown of Tecumseh.

The 14th arrived in China by boat, took a train inland and punched a hole through the Boxers to get to the walls protecting the Westerners. While some soldiers held off the rebels, other scaled the walls, organized the civilians and guided them out of the city to safety.

Their Chinese allies christened the 14th the Golden Dragons, a label the regiment has since worn proudly in both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jones was discharged May 30, 1902, commended for his “sobriety, industry and honesty.�

The story of his next few months -- his last few months -- isn't as valiant: His wife left him at some point because of his drunkenness, his hometown paper reported. He ended up in Nebraska, meeting a man named Harry Allen in McCook, and the two arrived in Lincoln that fall, peddling polish.

“I cannot imagine a more depressing job for a human being than to be a traveling stove polish salesman,� Piersol said.

Allen's wife got a job washing dishes at a hotel, where she befriended Mattie Gross, a chambermaid from Fairbury.

Joab Jones was in love again.

“He seems to have become passionately fond of her, but a day or two after their acquaintance began she rejected his advances because she found him intoxicated,� the Lincoln Evening News reported.

The Lincoln Star had more details. Jones called Mattie Gross and asked her to meet, so he could make up for his trouble.

"But they parted in anger, her last words being, 'We cannot be more than friends Joab.' In reply he cried, 'Before 9 o'clock it will be over with me.'"

The veteran spent the next hours telling friends he was going to kill himself by drinking carbolic acid, a common cleaning agent. He even showed them the bottle.

They laughed: He'd only known the woman three days. “They thought he was merely 'talking,'� the paper reported, “as he had told this story many times in the past week.�

Jones died in the rooming house at 122 S. 10th St., just after 9 p.m., on his 27th birthday.

* * *

Joab Jones had an uncle in Holdrege who traveled to Lincoln, learned his nephew was already buried at Wyuka and decided he ought to stay there.

Joab Jones had a widow in Illinois, who remarried. He had children who grew up, and old, and died.

After that, he had nobody.

But then, more than a century later, he had Matt Piersol, who has a and bringing them the honor they went so long without.

Piersol found the veteran's grave at Wyuka but he found no marker. He wants to change that, but he expects a challenge. The Army requires the consent of next-of-kin, he said, and who does Joab Jones have?

For now, Piersol has a simple solution to thank the man for his service.

“I would just encourage people, if they're driving by Wyuka, to toot their horn, or say his name out loud,� he said.

“It's not much, but it's something.�