Women of War - A Band of Brothers Story

Epilogue

A/N: Wow, I can't believe that this is the final chapter... it's been almost 5 years ago on the dot since I first started working on this fic, when all I had was the idea of creating multiple female OCs to add to Easy Company. 85 chapters, 651 pages, 255,169 words later, we are now at the end of a long journey.

I want to thank all of you for reading, for commenting your thoughts and reactions, and for sticking with this story for such a long time - even when updates sometimes took several months. I hope you enjoyed reading the fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. Who knows, maybe I'll write another BoB fic at some point in the future. For now, I'll turn to other projects, so keep an eye out either here or over on AO3 and fanfiction.net :)

And with that: on to the epilogue

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Catherine Wilson (born 09.11.1918, died 13.07.1982)

After the war, Catherine returned to being a housewife and mother, happy to be back with her family and watch her children grow up. Three years after the birth of daughter Emily in 1947, Catherine and her husband Roger had a fourth child, a son named Paul.

The transition back into civilian life came easy to her – things were never boring with young children in the house and when they were at school, she found plenty of ways to fill her time. She taught all her children and her sister Gillian self-defence and impressed on them the importance of knowing when to stand your ground and when to run. She volunteered at the VA, was elected to the school board in 1954 and made state-wide news in 1957 when she furiously dressed down a school official who had publicly disparaged immigrants. While some papers went to the trouble of including a full transcript of her tirade, by far the most prominent quote was: "I'm sure, since you're an intelligent and educated man, you'll have no trouble explaining your school's detention policy in Spanish then."

The family travelled to Los Angeles twice a year to visit Gillian, who had moved there in 1948 after getting hired as an editor for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This fostered Tommy's interest in films and he went on to become a director and producer. Together with his sister Gwen, he wrote and directed a film called One Rank Below God, which paid tribute to combat medics and was dedicated to their mother. Catherine's journals from the war were one of the main sources of inspiration for the film. She attended the film's premiere in 1980, together with Mia, Spina and Al Mampre.

Catherine died from heart disease in 1982, with her loving husband, sister and brother-in-law, four children, three nephews and five grandchildren by her bedside.

Esther Bernstein née Bowman (born 08.07.1919, died 28.10.2015)

The war had left its marks on her, more than just a scar on her thigh. Getting restless with the routine of her job, she started writing to cope – and soon supplemented journal entries with official reports, written recollections from her friends and newspaper articles. Encouraged by her then-fiancé Joshua Bernstein and her parents, she went to Barnard College and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in History in 1950. Joshua proposed to her two weeks after her graduation and they got married the following year. Neither of them wanted children and they were blissfully happy, Joshua getting a well-earned promotion and Esther using her GI Bill to pursue a postgraduate degree.

In 1955, she finished her first manuscript. "From 34 to 10 – Stories of the Women of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment" was a collection of stories and snapshots detailing the women's experiences in the Army before, during and after the war. The stories ranged from funny, heart-warming and mischievous to tragic, dramatic and traumatic, paying homage to those who chose to follow a different path, those who died and those who survived.
She ultimately didn't submit it to a publisher yet, unsure if she really wanted to share something so personal with the general public. So the manuscript remained in the bureau drawer underneath stacks of letters, neatly sorted and bundled, from her friends. She continued writing, though. Her research articles were published in several academic journals and she was invited to speak at various conferences. Whenever Joshua accompanied her to one, they turned it into a short holiday, and Esther's heart always fluttered a little when he proudly said "Oh no, I'm just an accountant, my wife here is the expert".