For many years, the wedding dress and veil, wrapped in tissue paper, were stored in a cedar chest in Manlius. The dress was made from German Luftwaffe parachute silk that was recovered in France, the veil from gauze hospital bandages. Mary Leak Ward would open the chest sometimes to carefully touch that fabric, a complicated touchstone of deep love and sweeping loss.
Last week, she figured out where the dress and veil belong.
Her mom wore them on July 2, 1945, the day she married Mary’s dad in France. Dr. Glenn Leak was a combat surgeon during World War II. Nora McFarland was a nurse in the same operating room. Glenn ended the war as a captain, Nora as a first lieutenant…