Most Iowa WACs Coming From Military Families
Private Verna R. Wanken, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Wanken, is serving overseas with a WAC communications company. She has one brother in service, Pfc. Leo G. Wanken.
Source: Daily Freeman Journal, Webster City, IA – December 13, 1943
Verna Rose Wanken was born May 21, 1914 to J. Henry and Catherine Keppers Wanken. She died July 2, 2013 and is buried in Corpus Christi Cemetery, Fort Dodge, IA.
Verna joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1943 and was assigned to the 6715th WAC Comm. Co. and sent to Allied Force Headquarters in Algiers, North Africa and then Caserta, Italy. She was a clerk-typist in the message center serving General Eisenhower. She was the proud recipient of the EAME Campaign Ribbon with two overseas bars.
She was a member of the WAC Veterans Organization, a charter member of Women in Military Service of Washington D.C. Memorial Association, and life member of the VFW Post 1856 in Fort Dodge, IA.
After her discharge she married Charles Watson.
Sources: “Ordinary Heroes”, Judge Newt Draheim - Chapter 1; ancestry.com
