Marjorie Bong Drucker

Marjorie and Richard Bong

Her 1st husband, Richard Bong!

Marjorie Bong Drucker

Marjorie Bong Drucker

Marjorie Bong Drucker

1944 picture of Ace of Aces Richard Ira Bong's "pin-up girl" Marge Vattendahl adorned his plane before they were married.

Marjorie Vattendahl was born on October 25, 1923, in Grand
Forks, N.D. She grew up in Superior and graduated from
Superior Teachers College. Her first husband, Major Richard
Bong, died in 1945. Several years later she married Murray
Drucker, who died in 1991. She is survived by her brother
William Vattendahl, of Longville, Minn., and her two
daughters, Kristina Drucker, of Los Angeles, and Karen
Trucker, of San Francisco.

SUPERIOR, Wis., Sept. 27, 2003--Marjorie Bong Drucker, widow of World War II hero Major Richard Bong, writer and award-winning magazine publisher, and national speaker on World War II topics, died today in Superior, Wis., with her family at her side, after a six-year battle with cancer.
She was 79.

Mrs. Bong Drucker was first introduced to the American
public during World War II as the sweetheart of Ace of Aces Richard Ira Bong. The most successful combat flyer in America’s history, Bong affixed her college graduation photo to the nose of his airplane, which affectionately became known around the world as the P-38 “Marge.” Bong later told her she was “the most shot-after girl in the South Pacific.”

Their blossoming romance caught the nation’s eye. Her
marriage to Richard Bong on February 10, 1945, with 1,200 guests in attendance, was covered by reporters from across the United States, the International News Service and newsreel cameramen from several Hollywood studios. Just six months later, on August 6, Bong was killed in Burbank, Calif., while test-piloting the Air Force’s first jet. The news was released publicly before his family was notified, so his young wife learned of his death over the radio.

“My world turned upside down,” she wrote in the foreword to
the new edition of General George C. Kenney’s book “Dick
Bong: America’s Ace of Aces” (Richard I. Bong WWII Heritage
Center, 2003). “I withdrew as much as possible from public
view. I blocked out the pain of that tragedy and learned
how to survive by doing so.”

In the following years, she quietly moved on with her life.
First in the fashion industry, she worked for Hollywood’s
largest modeling agency. She moved into writing and
magazine publishing when she met (and later married) Murray
Drucker, who had come to the agency looking for someone to
write a column for his magazine “California Girl.” She soon
became the magazine’s fashion coordinator, and the couple
traveled internationally for photo shoots. “California
Girl” grew into one of the leading fashion magazines in
Southern California. In 1956, she launched “The Boxer
Review,” a dog magazine on the Boxer breed. When she sold
the publication in 2001 and retired from publishing, it had
grown to a 128-page magazine with an international
subscription base, and it had won national awards as best
single breed publication.

With encouragement from her daughters--Kristina “Tina”
Drucker, a special education teacher who runs a school in
Cypress, Calif., and Karen “Tay” Drucker, an inspirational
singer/songwriter--she helped establish the Bong P-38 Fund
in 1989, with the goal of building a tribute to Bong and
the other veterans of World War II. In 1995, she published
“Memories,” a book chronicling her life with Major Bong,
all proceeds from which go directly to the Bong Heritage
Center.

Over the past two decades, Mrs. Bong Drucker dedicated her
time to ensuring that the stories of veterans would not be
forgotten. She was the vice-chair of the Richard I. Bong
WWII Heritage Center and an active speaker on behalf of
World War II veterans.

In 2002, Mrs. Bong Drucker moved from her home of 50 years
in Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon to return to Poplar, Wis.,
where she built a home on the Bong family farm. Having
championed the creation of the Richard I. Bong WWII
Heritage Center, she saw the dream become reality when she
helped cut the ribbon for the new museum on September 24,
2002, which would have been Dick Bong’s 82nd birthday.

Full obit at:
http://www.7fs.cityslide.com/newsletters/newsletter/1213644/13167.htm
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more info and Photos of Marge Bong Drucker available.
CONTACT: Christabel Grant, (day) 715-392-7151, (eve)
715-374-3691, [email protected].

Marjorie Drucker, center with her mother on the left and Dora Bong, mother of Richard Bong on the right entering church for the funeral of Richard Bong.