Posted by Deborah Ronan McKee on October 2, 2020:

Hello - James Wirrick's widow, Helene (Winky)Paquet, was a first cousin to my father, Newton T. Ronan. This site was the only thing I found on a superficial search for Winky on the internet. I wish I had known James and Winky, they seem like remarkable people, and I vaguely remember hearing stories about Winky when I was a child. My grandmother, Irene Paquet Ronan, made beautiful scrapbooks all her life, and I know that there was one dedicated to a trip to California to visit Winky and her mother. I am writing now because my father, the last of Irene P. and John Ronan's children, recently passed away. In sorting through papers and boxes in my childhood home, we found a number of items belonging to Winky's father, Leo C. Paquet, a 1921 graduate of West Point. Leo survived the Bataan Death March, only to die when the Japanese freighter he was transported on was sunk. I don't know how my grandmother, and then my father, came to have these items, but my sisters and I would very much like to offer the keepsakes to Leo's children and/or grandchildren. We would very much appreciate if you forward this to any surviving relatives. Thank you, Deb McKee

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