Tony Stein Legacy Project

Hello!

Hey! We hope you stumbled upon this site and spend a bit of time reviewing American hero Tony Stein's WWII story and learning details like how his mother referred to him as "Tough Tony."

As Tony Stein's family, we have been concerned in recent years with keeping American Legion Post 619 open indefinitely. Thanks to a local North Dayton resident, Dave Todd, it was closed and then reopened all in the last 15 years, and due to his hard work and own money, it struggles remaining open month by month. Its annual expenses exceed its income.

We brainstormed to come up with multiple ways we might be able to help and the first two which seemed possible were: 1) researching and writing Tony's biography by obtaining his military records from the St Louis Personnel Records Center, contacting the WW2 Museum in New Orleans and searching through all of their online records, subscribing to newspapers.com and reading all of the old news articles from the 40s to the present mentioning Tony, his mother, USS STEIN, more, publishing the book by late 2026 or early 2027 and setting up all proceeds to benefit Post 619, and 2) use the 250th birthday of the United States of America and an event to showcase and honor some of the memorabilia, photographs, and quotes regarding him and his story, reminding the local community and veterans to support Post 619.

DISCOVERING A 1946 TIME CAPSULE

When reading news articles from 1946, these two letters to the editor were found and dated within days of each other in December of 1946. One is from the Publicity Chairman Ray Adams, and the second one was written by Tony's mother.

Then in July and August of 2001, a class reunion picnic was being coordinated for Our Lady of the Rosary alumni students for September 15, 2001 (which likely never occurred) and an alumni named Joann Reichert was asking the local media, Dayton Daily News, to publish articles asking if anyone else had memories of participating in a time capsule for the Tony Stein Memorial. The follow-up article in August states a Jim Miller noted a book published in the year 2000 by a local historian had information regarding items placed within the cornerstone of the monument. The copy of the book page is below the two articles, and the yellow highlighted part is where the time capsule is assumed to be located.

Picture of the current North Dayton War Memorial in Ohio

Soooooo.... now we have a third goal: coordinate with all of the right local players and associations to see if we can unearth and safely preserve this 80-year-old time capsule on our country's 250th birthday and perhaps replace it with a new time capsule. Start a tradition.

Please stay tuned to this blog for ongoing updates.

More information will likely be known in the February - March 2026 timeframe.