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Eleanor's cancer went into remission after intense radiation treatments, and she was soon back to playing golf and bridge with her friends. Christine took the letters and yellowed newspaper clippings and stray photographs home to Montclair.

Over the past three years, she meticulously organized her mother's memorabilia, carefully photocopying each letter and tucking the originals in plastic sleeves. She catalogued and indexed them, filling six black binders.

She went on the Internet to learn more about the WACs, and discovered how controversial they had been in their time, how a suspicious American public largely believed that the 150,000 women who volunteered were prostitutes or loose women whose real mission was to sexually service the boys overseas. Newspapers falsely reported that large numbers of the women were returning pregnant. The ugly rumors were so rampant that Congress demanded to know how many WACs were pregnant or infected with venereal disease. The real statistics quickly convinced the lawmakers that commendation, not condemnation, was in order. Christine shared some of her research with her mother.

"She stopped and said, 'That's why Daddy didn't want me to talk about it!' " Christine recalls. It was when they were in Japan, Eleanor told her daughter, right after the war, that her husband demanded she stop mentioning her stint in the WACs. His service was treated as a source of pride; hers, one of shame.

Christine examined each fragment of information she discovered in the footlocker and tried to find meaning: The newspaper clips about her mother's meritorious service plaque, the engraved silver box she was presented as president of a golf club, her swift promotions in rank -- her mother, Christine realized, must have been a competent manager long before she was a self-effacing homemaker. And while never analyzing it or debating it, Eleanor clearly saw the cruel irony of war and understood that liberation and survival were separate ambitions.

She wrote about her few days' leave in Rome, and the locket she was sending home blessed by the pope. She talked about having breakfast in bed at her hotel and then touring St. Peter's. She described courtyards blooming with orchids and camellias while people scavenged the bombed ruins.

Sunday night I visited one of the big hospitals with several other girls. ... Most of the fellows that I saw had just been sent back from the front with frozen feet. ... They were all such nice fellows and so young. It made me feel as though I never wanted to complain about anything again. -- Feb. 1, 1944

She wrote about a St. Patrick's Day dance and about longing on a dreary day to be sitting in a cozy chair next to the fire back home.

I write you about the parties and dances because I am not allowed to write you about the places I go or what actually goes on over here. Don't worry about me because I am well and happy, only I wish this war would end soon so I could get home again. -- March 16, 1944

She mentions a beau killed in action, revealing her sorrow, but not his name.

He was a wonderful fellow and I liked him a lot. We took pictures one day when we were visiting the ruins of Pompeii. His death was quite a shock to me and it took me some time to get over it, but since that time I have become a little more hardened to that sort of news. It is best not to get too fond of anyone over here. -- August 8, 1944

She said she could use some nail polish, too, and some "bright, flashy pajamas" to lift her morale. That same month, her 22-year-old cousin, Ramsey, was reported missing in action.

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