Following the Memorial Day ceremony at Fort Vancouver, some people will be walking down to the Clark County war memorial, which symbolizes what today is all about.
As they scan the list of fatalities from 125 years of conflict, totaling almost 600 names, one might catch their eye: Thelma’s name.
Thelma Rancore is the only woman on the Clark County Veterans War Memorial.
She enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War II. Rancore died of rheumatic fever on July 12, 1945, at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington, D.C.
The 29-year-old staff sergeant was buried with full military honors on July 16, 1945, four weeks before the Japanese surrendered.
In 1995, as part of its coverage of the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII, The Columbian found family members who recalled how Rancore became a Marine.
They described Rancore as an athletic and adventurous woman. After graduating from Camas High School in 1934, she went to work in the paper mill.
“She was never happy there,” said Evelyn Ireton, Rancore’s niece, who died in 2008.
“She was very sports-minded. She’d pick me up every Saturday, and we’d go driving around. She took me along to watch her play softball or tennis.
“Then she got this idea to go into the service.”
Rancore enlisted in Portland on March 22, 1943, a month after the Women Marines program was activated. Rancore was one of about 18,500 Women Marines during WWII.
She was sent to Hunter College in New York for boot camp, then assigned to office duty at Marine Corps headquarters near Washington, D.C.
“She got to see some major league baseball games. That was a real highlight for her,” Ireton told The Columbian.
Rancore was serving with Company K, 3rd Headquarters Battalion, when she developed rheumatic fever.
Thelma’s mother and a sister, Ruby, started back east on the train. They got as far as Idaho before calling the hospital for an update.
“They told momma there wasn’t a thing she could do,” Daisy Krieger, another sister, said in 1995, shortly before her death. Florence Rancore and Ruby returned to Camas.
Rancore is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Plot No. 23167-6.
“She was going to come back for Christmas that year,” Krieger said.
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