The Tiger's Widow
Women's Army Corps service member turned 100 in 2022.
Almost 10 years ago I published a book called The Tiger’s Widow. It is the second book in my Stories of the Lost book series and contains the story of Virginia Schaerer who married my cousin Robert Brouk. Robert’s AVG Flying Tiger story and war diary is in the first book Stories of the Lost.
After Virginia watched Robert die on 19 December 1942 while training pilots in Orlando, FL, just three weeks after they married, she went into mourning. A few months later, to save herself from a deep depression, she chose to join the Women’s Army Corps and take up Robert’s fight.
Last year, in 2022, Virginia turned 100 years old. The retirement community where she lives held a birthday party for her where her family was in attendance. The local television station interviewed her. I just discovered the interview today, 12 August 2023. Ginny didn’t tell me she was interviewed last year, otherwise I would have tried to find it online.
Please watch her interview. Ginny is an amazing woman with a heart of gold. An angel on earth. She and I met because the universe conspired nine years after I started researching my family history in 1996. At that time, I had posted on the Flying Tiger message boards about Robert, and asked for information on him or his widow. No one in the family knew what had happened to her. Nine years later, one of Ginny’s grandson’s saw my post on that message board and she emailed me in December 2005, just a few months after I’d had my twins.
Ginny gave me Robert’s war diary and pages from the huge binders of familiy history she had written after her second husband, Harvey, had died. It wasn’t until 2010 that I was really able to focus on writing Robert’s story. Having three kids at home, two of them twins with some developmental delays took priority. However, I was able to stay in touch with Ginny and write Robert’s story and publish it in 2011. Then I republished it with some more information in my book Stories of the Lost in 2014.
Ginny and I finally got to meet in person in 2012, just a couple of months before I moved out and got a divorce. That trip was life changing. Several other trips to visit her followed and she agreed to let me tell her story in my book, The Tiger’s Widow. It took some convincing to let Ginny write her story because, like many veterans, she humbly said, ‘I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t on the front lines with a gun.’
I explained to her that my series Stories of the LOST was not about someone losing their car keys or their mind because their kids are going crazy. LOST is about Ginny whose plans with Robert died in a field when his plane crashed. LOST is about my cousin Frank who died in the 29th Division in June 1944 and never had the chance to go to college, get married, or live to old age. LOST is my grandma who lost her husband even though he came home from the war, since he suffered with mental health issues as a result of his service. I also told her that it was her generation that gave mine so many more possibilities in life. When I explained this, Ginny agreed to let me write her story.
Women like Ginny pushed boundaries in World War II so women of my generation could have more choices than being a housewife, nurse, teacher, or other similar job. She gave women, through her service, the possibility to join the military and serve their country. She is an inspiration to all she meets.
Have you written your veteran’s story? Please share in the comments and place a book link if you have so we can all take a look.