Dutch woman connects with family of World War II soldier whose grave she's visited for 74 years

Mia Verkennis never met Army Pfc. Joseph Geraci, but since 1945, she has visited his grave twice a year, placing flowers in his memory and praying for his family.

Verkennis, 89, lives in the Dutch village of Margraten. During World War II, U.S. forces liberated Margraten from the Nazis, and about 17,800 soldiers who died in battle were buried there in the Netherlands American Cemetery. Villagers adopted headstones, with most not knowing anything about the soldier or their families back in the United States.

After decades of visiting Geraci's grave, Verkennis asked someone she knows who speaks English to please write a letter for her to send to the family. Verkennis reached Geraci's nieces, and soon learned that Geraci was the son of Italian immigrants who lived in Rochester, New York, and had a job lined up at Bausch & Lomb. He was just 21 when he died, and his niece, Donna Hooker, told The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that her grandparents rarely talked about her uncle, likely because his death was such a shock.

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Geraci died on Nov. 17, 1944, after brutal fighting in the dense Hurtgen Forest. Verkennis visits him twice a year, on Memorial Day and the village's annual commemoration of its liberation. She also takes care of the grave of Air Force Sgt. Jim Garvey of Chicago, and reached his family at the same time she found Hooker; some of his relatives have since visited Verkennis in Margraten, and members of both families regularly write her. "Every chance we get we send her pictures," Hooker told the Democrat and Chronicle. "It's very comforting to know what she's done for Uncle Joe."