Joanne Beerhalter of Cranberry Township recently erected a memorial for her late husband in honor of his service in World War II. Francis Beerhalter, who died in February at 87, earned three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star during his military service.

CRANBERRY TWP — A township woman is celebrating Memorial Day in a very literal fashion this year by building a memorial to her late husband, a veteran of World War II.

Joanne Beerhalter, 69, of Cranberry recently erected the monument to her husband to honor his dedication and service to his country.

Francis Beerhalter, who died in February at the age of 87, earned three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star during his military service. He was wounded three times in the war and once volunteered to go behind enemy lines to save some of his wounded comrades.

Beerhalter said her husband later met one of the men he saved during a chance encounter at a nursing home several years ago.

The monument, which sits in front of Beerhalter's residence in the Oak Springs mobile home park, is built around a flagpole in her yard. Next to the flagpole is a picture of her husband, medals in hand, sitting in front of the Washington Monument in the nation's capital.

Around the flagpole and picture, she said, are seven smaller flags with markers denoting various wars in American history like the Civil War, both World Wars and the Vietnam War. There's also a stone in the middle with a prayer engraved on it.

Beerhalter later got a neighbor to help her place mulch to complete the memorial, which she said is only a small gesture for a man who did so much for his country.

"I just wanted to do something for my husband," she said. "I wanted to do something to keep his memory going."

Beerhalter said her husband had a sincere devotion to every holiday honoring veterans. She said, even in his later years when dementia set in, he always remembered to honor their memory on the holidays.

"He loved Memorial Day, Flag Day, Veterans Day," she said. "He always went to put flags down at the cemetery and even when he got older he always remembered when it was time to go put up the flags. He remembered them, and this is a good way for me to do that for him."

Iris Lafayette, Beerhalter's neighbor, thought of the idea for the memorial and helped her lay the mulch.

She said Francis Beerhalter was a kind-hearted soul who always made people around him laugh. It was an honor, she said, to build a monument that will make her think of her friend every time she leaves her house.

"Fran is very deserving of this," she said about the memorial. "I think everyone should do something like this to recognize and to see that their loved ones are still very much here with us. It's just heart-warming to look at and it makes me sit here and think when I see it. Now every time we go outside we'll see it."