Another puzzling dog tag

[jim46]

I have had this tag for a while and have never figured it out. The first thing about it is the name--"Josephine Southard." I can only find two or three people by this name in Ancestry.com who would have been the approximate age of the soldier who would have warn this, and they are all women. The second puzzle is the unit. From what I have gathered, the 158th US Infantry Regiment came about during World War I, but this tag, unlike almost all the others I have seen, does not have "U.S.A." or "U.S." or "A.E.F." anywhere on it. Nor is there a service number, or anything else, on the back of the tag. This leads me to think that this might be a National Guard unit that was called up for service along the Mexican border in 1916. But what state? I don' t know. I am grateful for any helpful suggestions.

[BEAST]

That’s an interesting tag. She may have been with an organization such as the Red Cross that directly supported that regiment abd may have been assigned to directly support that company. I don’t know enough about these groups to tell you if they

were required to wear ID tags or not, but it was prudent to have one made.

[aznation]

 

[29navy]

Could be a sweetheart piece.

 

[VMI88]

1 hour ago, 29navy said:

Could be a sweetheart piece.

 

That's what I was thinking.  Dog tags were made at the company level so somebody may have just made it up for a wife or girlfriend.  It's a really cool piece though - I love personal items like this.

[lettow]

There was a Josephine Southard who was 19 in 1918 living in Bisbee with her parents.  Her father was a miner and did not serve in the war.  They moved there from Oklahoma.  By 1920, she is back in OK.

 

My guess is it is a sweetheart piece made by someone in Co. G who was from Bisbee.