Trip Ben

My Journey to America

Benedikte Gijsbregs

Benedikte Gijsbregs of Belgium holds a photo of WWII Soldier Donald Ward, a Washington County native, whose grave she maintains. Debra Ruffing, related to Pvt. Ward is at the right

Elizabeth Miles/Post-Gazette

Belgian woman who cares for U.S. WWII soldier's grave meets his Washington County family

A Belgian woman spent more than three years searching for the family of a World War II veteran from Washington County whose military grave site she maintains. She finally met the family last week at Pittsburgh International Airport, where she was greeted with hugs and tears by the family of Pvt. Donald Ward.

Benedikte Gijsbregs, 48, has no personal connection to Pvt. Ward, who grew up in Waynesburg and Canonsburg and was killed in Germany in 1944. But in her relentless research, she sent thousands of emails and letters hoping to find his family.

“She did not give up, even when she came up against brick walls,” Debra Ruffing, Pvt. Ward’s first cousin, once removed, said of Ms. Gijsbregs’ three-year journey to find his relatives. “It’s probably very rare that you ever find the family, but she’s tenacious and finally did.”

Through a Belgian program that encourages civilians to maintain the graves of fallen soldiers, Ms. Gijsbregs “adopted” Pvt. Ward’s grave, said Mrs. Ruffing, a historian and genealogist who lives in Washington, Pa.

Pvt. Ward was laid to rest in Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium, where 7,992 other American soldiers are buried. The Ruffing family someday hopes to visit Mr. Ward’s grave site, where white, marble headstone crosses span 57 acres of grass. Ms. Gijsbregs visits his site frequently, making sure it is clean and putting flowers out during a memorial or birthday.

Ten members of the Ruffing family — including Mrs. Ruffing’s five grandchildren, all of whom John Ruffing, her husband and a Vietnam veteran, hopes serve someday — took Ms. Gijsbregs to the Southwestern Pennsylvania World War II Memorial on the North Shore on Saturday, gazing at photographs on the translucent glass panels. After, they went to the “We Can Do It!” World War II exhibit at the Heinz History Center.

Ms. Gijsbregs, who’s fluent in English, searched for the family using everything she could — Facebook, Ancestry.com, Internet forums. Her friend, Ben Savelkoul, who was helping her do research from the Netherlands, contacted the Washington County Courthouse in August 2011. Patricia Stavovy, the courthouse’s then-assistant law librarian, searched through the census, property records and marriage files, but came up empty-handed.

Mrs. Stavovy, 43, of Washington, Pa., contacted then-librarian Janet Wareham at the Washington County Historical Society, who found a newspaper article for a person also named Donald Ward, who was working in Bridgeville. But it wasn’t the one Ms. Gijsbregs was searching for.

And until Thursday, Mrs. Stavovy had no idea Ms. Gijsbregs, who teaches Dutch language and history in Belgium, finally found the Ruffings.

“This has been a dream because she ... wants to inspire her students to adopt a grave of a World War II veteran or something similar,” said Mrs. Stavovy, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution National Pike Chapter.

Ms. Gijsbregs found Mr. Ward’s family after contacting the Cornerstone Genealogy Society in Waynesburg, Pa. When Mrs. Ruffing received a call from them, she almost didn’t believe it.

“I remember the day they contacted mom ... she was crying, screaming with joy,” said Mrs. Ruffing’s 37-year-old daughter, Lauren Jobes.

During one of their first times communicating, Mrs. Ruffing sent Ms. Gijsbregs a photograph of her father’s cousin, and she was thrilled.

“I could give him a face,” she said.

Mrs. Ruffing’s father, William E. Smith of Waynesburg, Pa., also served in World War II. He left for the service with Mr. Ward from the Main Street train station in Washington, Pa., on Feb. 27, 1943.

Pvt. Ward died Nov. 16, 1944, in Hürtgen Forrest, Germany, and the Ruffing family did not know where he was buried until Ms. Gijsbregs contacted them. His body is buried at plot G, row 13, grave 37.

But the grave of Pvt. Ward, who earned the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, isn’t the only person’s grave from Western Pennsylvania that Ms. Gijsbregs helps keep clean. While she only adopted Pvt. Ward’s grave, she helps tend to the grave of Second Lt. James F. Parker, who was from Allegheny County and also died during World War II.

With more than 3,900 miles separating Ms. Gijsbregs and the Ruffings, taking care of Mr. Ward’s grave is something she takes pride in.

My family would say, "What are you doing with that dead Soldier?' "Ms. Gijsbregs said. "I always felt if I had a brother who was killed in America, I would like to have someone look after his grave."

By Luke Nozicka, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette July 26, 2015

Benedikte Gijsbregs, left, visiting the Ruffing family last week. Though Ms. Gijsbregs has been searching for three years for the family of the soldier whose grave she tends, she only recently was able to find them.

Elizabeth Miles/Post-Gazette

Jean Parker Mace embraces Benedikte Gijsbregs for the first time with tears and a hug in front of Washington County Courthouse.

Celeste van Kirk/Observer reporter

Belgium grave caretaker, families of WWII vets meet

Separated by the Atlantic Ocean, they never met until Wednesday, but the emotions that were flowing then were akin to that of a family reunion

Benedikte Gijsbregs, 48, who teaches Dutch language and history in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, has for years been caring for the graves of two American servicemen who died in the European Theater of World War II, and, on Wednesday, Gijsbregs met the families of those servicemen.She's fluent in English, but hugs and tears need no translation.

“How can I ever say what it means?” asked Jean Parker Mace, 79, of McMurray, as her eyes welled up. “I don't know what I can say, except it means a great deal.”

Her husband, Bill, lovingly patted her shouIf one's family member was buried far, far away, there are probably times one would like to visit his or her grave or show it to the next generation, showing someone deeply loved the departed. Two local families have found it reassuring that there is someone who is willing to do this in their stead.lder and murmured, “Easy does it, honey.”

Gijsbregs, through a Belgian program, “adopted” the grave of Donald Ward, and she sought information about him through Washington County, and the historical society came up with only a brief clipping. She dutifully places flowers and flags at the marker bearinA story about her quest to learn more about Ward appeared in the Observer-Reporter in November 2011, turned up no information, but Gijsbregs was relentless in her pursuit.g the name Donald Ward, a man about whom she knew next to nothing.One of the many inquiries Gijsbregs made was with Cornerstone Genealogical Society in Waynesburg. Debra Smith Ruffing's father, the late Bill Smith, was from Waynesburg. “They knew my father, my daughter Lauren (Jobes) and I because we're historians,” explained Debra Ruffing, a South Strabane Township resident.

But she was flabbergasted when Cornerstone Genealogical Society informed her about Gijsbregs' search for relatives of Ward. “I didn't believe it,” she said Wednesday. “I thought it was a joke."

The circumstances, however, were for real, and Gijsbregs was able to make her first trip to the United States this month.

“I never would have met Benedikte without cellphones and the Internet,” said Debra Smith Ruffing of South Strabane Township. Ruffing said Donald Ward was her first cousin, once removed.

And Ruffing could not have known Gijsbregs' interest in World War II history would spawn the adoption of another grave.

Second Lit. James F. Parker, was also killed in World War II and is buried in the same American cemetery, Henri-Chapelle, as Donald Ward.

They are just two of 7,992 members of the American military laid to rest there. James F. Parker Jr., pilot of Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, was just 19 years old when his plane went down.

He and his little sister, Jean, grew up together in a community now known as Bethel Park, a post-war name for a place previously known simply as Bethel Township.

Parker was awarded the Purple Heart and Air Medal after his death Sept. 16, 1944. With the end of hostilities in Europe ended, Parker's mother had the opportunity to have her son's remains sent home.Her reaction was, “He went down with his plane, What would we bury?” Jean Parker Mace recalled.

Jean and Bill Mace named their first son after her fallen brother, and when the son grew up and was stationed with the military in Germany, he visited the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery and gave his grandmother the only pictures she would ever see of her son's final resting place.When Jean Parker Mace learned of Gijsbregs and Henri-Chapelle Cemetery through the story nearly four years ago, she contacted the Belgium resident by email and the two have corresponded.

By the end of Wednesday afternoon, a whole group of people who had never met before were eating lunch together.

“We're kind of related, because (Benedikte) takes care of ours, too,” Jobes said of her new acquaintances, the Maces.

Adopting a grave in Europe “is a great way to pay tribute to our liberators, to help ensure that the sacrifices they made will not be forgotten,” Gijsbregs said. “I also try in my classes to make this clear to my students. Knowing more about the fallen soldiers whose graves we honor means a lot to us.

“Because I was raised by my grandparents, as a child I often heard stories about war and resistance, and that interest has steadily continued to grow.”

By Barbara Miller July 22, 2015

Also in a Belgian newspaper was written about Benedikte's journey to America ...