Gertrude Weaver, WWII veteran

Four days before she died, Gertrude Weaver and a friend sat on a sunporch in the Berkshires and reminisced about their Marine Corps days.

"Four good friends" - all female officers in the Marine Corps in World War II, said Mrs. Weaver's daughter, Pamela Spitz - "had vowed to see each other at least once a year."

But, she said, "one woman had passed away, one suffers from Alzheimer's." Now it was down to two.

"They were tough," Spitz said of the pair on the porch. "They were bright. They were living independently."

On Sunday, Gertrude Moon Weaver, 91, a former Delaware County teacher, died of complications from a stroke at Taylor Hospice Residence in Ridley Park. She lived in Chester Heights.

Born in Philadelphia, she graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1935 and from West Chester State Teachers College in 1939.

She earned a master's degree in elementary education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941.

From May 1943 to December 1945, she was on active duty in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, established to free up men for combat duty.

Mrs. Weaver was a communications officer at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, N.C., where, her daughter said, "she had to sign off on classified coded messages."

After marrying, Mrs. Weaver began her teaching career in 1955 at Francis Harvey Green Elementary School in Bethel Township. In the 1960s, she transferred to Concord Elementary School in Concord Township.

From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, she was the reading supervisor for those two elementary schools in the Garnet Valley School District.

After her retirement in 1984, she was a volunteer with the Literacy Council of Pennsylvania, teaching adults to read English in order to become citizens.

In February 1985, Mrs. Weaver won a citation for her work from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

She volunteered at the Rachel Kohl Community Library in Concordville and at the Riddle Thrift Shop, served on the library committee of Reformation Lutheran Church in Media, and was a member of the Springton Lake Garden Club.

Besides her daughter, Mrs. Weaver is survived by a brother, David; two granddaughters; and two great-granddaughters. Her husband of 46 years, John H. Weaver III, died in 1991.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. today at Reformation Lutheran Church, 102 W. Rose Tree Rd., Media.