How did a bunch of grave markers from Punchbowl end up at a house in Palolo?

A Palolo resident found over a hundred grave markers at her house that seem to be from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as Punchbowl, but nobody seems to know how they got there.

The grave markers memorialize soldiers who served in conflicts such as World War I and the Vietnam War, as well as their spouses and minor children.

Homeowner Yujing Shentu’s father discovered them while doing yardwork in 2019. She said they were flipped over and being used as stepping stones at the time, and that her parents called her down when they saw the names engraved on the other side.

“This is definitely not common stepping stone,” she remembers her parents telling her.

Grave markers in Shentu’s yard memorialize people such as Thomas J. Scully, who died at the age of 25 just days before World War II ended in the Pacific; Rear Adm. Fred Wallace Connor, who served in both world wars and died in 1963; Henry Cobb, who was born in 1901 and died at 53; and Georgina Freitas, who died in 1956 at the age of 60.

Nobody knows how or when the grave markers got there. In at least some cases, the ones in Shentu’s yard appear to be duplicates.

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