80 years after her father’s death in WWII, she finally learned the where and how

Syracuse, Nebraska — Gerri Eisenhauer’s father, Army Pvt. William Walters, was shipped off to World War II before she was even born.

In 1944, her family got back his body and a U.S. government letter that only said he had died somewhere in France.

“I just always wondered, where he died, how he died, it was just a little part of a puzzle piece that was missing in my life,” Eisenhauer told CBS News.

For decades, the family was resigned to the fact that it would never know. That is, until a few months ago.

Eisenhauer was at her home in Syracuse, Nebraska, this past summer when she received a message from Christophe Ligere, a French historian, from the small village of Grez-sur-Loing, in central France. The message read, in part, “On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of France, we pay tribute to Private William Walters.”

Ligere had found Walters’ name in the diary of an eyewitness to his death, and he immediately felt like he had to find Walters’ family. Ligere conducted some research and located the Walters’ family tree, and from there he found the online obituary of another relative of Eisenhauer, through which he left her that message.

“We were looking for our soldier,” Eisenhauer’s daughter, Jan Moore, told CBS News. “We did not know that he was their soldier, too.”

As Eisenhauer learned from Ligere, in August 1944, American troops began liberating the village of Grez-sur-Loing. It was a joyous day, but there was one casualty: while crossing the Loing River into town, Walters’ boat capsized and he drowned at the age of 20.

After Ligere tracked down Walters’ family, he invited them to France to honor their shared hero and the sacrifice he made here. Eisenhauer and her daughter and son, Jan and Allen, made the trip in September.

Marc Perrot had witnessed Walters’ death at the age of 13.

“They went looking for him and found him,” Perrot explained in an interview with France Télévisions. “They did a lot of things to try to revive him, but it didn’t work.”

Perrot met Eisenhauer and showed her where they laid her father to rest prior to his body being returned to the U.S.

“They covered him with flowers,” Eisenhauer said of the French. “It’s just amazing, the care that they gave him.”

This week, Eisenhauer returned to her father’s grave in Cass County, Nebraska.

“First time I’ve been here and had the answers,” Eisenhauer said.

She says she now feels at peace, and it’s all thanks to the grateful people of France, who even 80 years on, still see the U.S. through the prism of our better angels.

“It’s very important because the…young people come from the US…to battle for democracy…in France,” Ligere told CBS News.  

Steve Hartman

Steve Hartman is a CBS News correspondent. He brings viewers moving stories from the unique people he meets in his weekly award-winning feature segment “On the Road.”