Her Wedding Dress Made From Husband's Parachute-- Part 2

It took months of recuperation from the wound he received on D-Day, but when Gerald Bonsonto recovered, he sent his parachute back to the U.S. in two boxes.  Aida would be wed in it after transformed to dress both practical during wartime rationing and fashionable for the time.

Aida, who turned 97 on July 10, recalled how she brought the fabric to an Italian immigrant who hand-stitched it into a beautiful gown with a sweetheart neckline and a long train.

It is now 73 years later and Gerald has been dead 39 years but that dress is still a work of fine craftsmanship.

On May 27, Brig. Gen. Kris A. Belanger met Aida in the Orland Park home of her son, Jerry Bonsanto Jr. to pick up the dress and transport it to the 82nd Airborne Museum at Fort Bragg, N.C., where it will be put on exhibit as a testament to the time.

--GreGen