Virginia Wilterdink was born near the Canadian border in Woodland, Maine in October 1922. She was one of five children whose father worked at the local paper company, but the family lived on a large tract of bountiful property just outside of town. She had an active childhood, barely affected by the Great Depression. Wilterdink had an uncle in the Navy who worked as a pharmacist. He encouraged the dream she had from childhood to become a nurse. After she graduated from high school in 1940, she attended nursing schools in Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. While she was getting her education, German submarines were marauding up and down the East Coast [Annotator's Note: East Coast of the United States], and the nature of her patient load was affected dramatically by the increase in domestic emergencies. She kept up with the changing political situation and with evidence of the approaching war all around. On the Sunday the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], she was listening to the radio while studying for an exam. She was "stunned" when she heard the announcement, and still remembers her distress at seeing the subsequent newspaper articles that revealed the devastation from the raid. When she graduated in 1943, an "impressionable young person," she heeded the advice of the older medical staff who recommended she join one of the armed services. Although she was "scared to death," Wilterdink enlisted in the Army at Fort Preble in South Portland, Maine.

Making her way alone, Virginia Wilterdink arrived at Camp Devens in Massachusetts to begin her military career. She met a woman who immediately became a lifelong friend, and went through basic training for several weeks there. During that time, she did duty on a hospital train transporting wounded American soldiers from Cape Cod to Waltham Regional Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She was stationed at Waltham for almost half a year, and remembers working on a ward full of German prisoners, under guard and strict behavioral standards. She was assigned to the 314th Hospital [Annotator's Note: unable to verify unit] and, still a relatively inexperienced young woman, Wilterdink traveled across country by train to San Francisco, California, where she was taken on board the former luxury liner the SS Lurline. She immediately sailed out of San Francisco Bay and into the Pacific Ocean. Wilterdink remembers the journey being cold and crowded and that young sailors made comments about the girls' looks while they were in line for meals. She shared a stateroom with five other girls, and took saltwater showers. While she was at sea, the war in Europe ended and there was a huge celebration aboard ship.

The SS Lurline, on which Virginia Wilterdink was traveling, stopped in Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands] to deliver supplies to the recaptured island, then sailed "on and on" to Manila Harbor [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines]. She remembers the area being littered with sunken ships, preventing the Lurline from reaching the docks, and having to climb down rope ladders to smaller vessels that took them to shore. Wilterdink said everything around Manila was bombed out, except for one hotel that was remarkably still making ice cream. She remembers riding through town and witnessing women washing their babies in rain puddles. She arrived in April 1945, and joined veteran Army nurses who were housed in a former schoolhouse. They worked at the Santa Tomas University Hospital, treating the American GIs [Annotator’s Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier], some of them survivors of the Bataan Death March. There was also a refugee center at the university, and Wilterdink remembers how horrible the experience was for the people living there. She also worked out in the hills at an evacuation hospital for a while, after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Wilterdink was picnicking at the seashore when the news broke that the war was over. The nurses returned to Manila to find the city in full celebration, but they were confined to their quarters for their own safety. Although the conditions under which she worked were not optimum, Wilterdink said nothing "horrible" happened to her. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she met the man she would eventually marry while she was there.

After the war ended, Virginia Wilterdink had enough of the island climate, and elected to work on the hospital ship USS Hope (AH-7). Conditions on the ship were a great improvement, and Wilterdink traveled through the China Sea on into Los Angeles, California. After she was debriefed, she crossed the country again by train to Fort Dix in Newark, New Jersey where she was discharged. She stopped in New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] on her way home. Finding herself out of work, Wilterdink applied for a job as an airline stewardess with United Air Lines and was living in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] when she married. She went back to university, and attained a bachelor's degree on the G.I. Bill at the University of Nebraska [Annotator's Note: in Lincoln, Nebraska]. She and her husband had three sons. Thinking back on her role as a nurse during World War 2, she believes she served an important function, and taking care of people in a foreign place matured her.

Virginia Wilterdink's most memorable experience of the war was hearing the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], because it was such a disastrous event for all Americans. She joined the armed services to help rid the world of Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] and Hirohito [Annotator's Note: Japanese Emporer Hirohito]. She was raised as a caring individual, and she wanted to be of use. The war was a broadening experience for her and she is sure World War 2 changed the lives of all Americans. She feels it important for institutions such as The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] to teach the history of the war so that people can understand the importance of getting along.