WAC Veteran Helped by VA Benefits at Gallen Adult Day Health Care Center

Gertrude Hasenstab has been participating in the Gallen Adult Day Health Care program at JHR for more than a year. Gertrude, a Women’s Army Corps veteran, joined the Corps on September 1, 1942 at the age of 22, a young woman with a sense of adventure and a patriotic streak. At that time, recruiters were urging women to sign up because “we need you to help get the war over faster,” Gertrude tells her daughter, Barbara Wronski, with whom she lives in Blauvelt, N.Y. Gertrude’s brother and brothers-in-law were all fighting in the war in Germany so “she stepped up,” said Barbara. “She was an able-bodied, single woman. Her sisters were home with babies,” so she felt she could do her part.

Gertrude spent the war years in the U.S. in Army facilities in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, working first as an orderly in the hospital and then as a mail clerk. The WACs is the women’s branch of the U.S. Army, created as an auxiliary Corps in 1942 and converted to full status in 1943, according to Wikipedia.

When Gertrude was discharged on January 16, 1946, she returned to Pearl River, NY. and worked for Lederle Laboratories, now Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. She met her future husband that same year, and they married in 1949.

Barbara is telling her mother’s story because she “wants to help other caregivers” who may not know that the Gallen Adult Day Health Care program is recommended by the Veteran’s Administration. As an approved program, the VA provides veteran coverage for two days a week at the Gallen Center.

Gertrude has gotten a lot out of her participation at Gallen, according to her daughter. “She’s made friends and gets stimulation from the activities that are planned. On the days she’s at Gallen, she is less agitated from her Alzheimer’s disease. The entire staff is doing a first-rate job.” Her mother is “a great woman, a sweetheart, but the disease has taken its toll,” she said.

For further information about VA benefits for the Gallen Adult Day Health Care Center, contact Shelley Steiner, Social Worker, at 201-784-1414, Ext. 5340.

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