More Than a Name: Remembering Winthrope “Winks” Hastings

Sara Peterson with Wiel Bertrand, the Dutch adopter of the grave of 2nd Lieutenant Winthrope N. Hastings, at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. Photo courtesy of Sara Peterson.

When Sara Peterson began planning a trip to the Netherlands in April 2026, one visit carried special meaning: the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, where her distant relative, Second Lieutenant Winthrope Niles Hastings, is buried.

Known to his family as “Winks,” Hastings served with the U.S. Army’s 743rd Tank Battalion and was killed in action in Germany in November 1944. He was Sara’s grandfather’s first cousin, but their relationship had been closer than that. The two men had grown up together in Owatonna, Minnesota, only a few months apart in age. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, both enlisted in the Army and stayed connected through letters during the war.

While preparing for her trip to the Netherlands, Sara discovered the Forever Promise Project and learned that Winks’s grave had not only been marked and preserved, but personally cared for by a Dutch adopter. For Sara, the realization was deeply moving.

“It warms my heart to know that these soldiers have not been forgotten and that while my family hasn’t been able to physically be there to care for Winks’ grave, that someone else has been doing it unbeknownst to us all of these years,” Sara shared.

That “someone” was Wiel Bertrand. For more than 20 years, Wiel had honored the grave of the American soldier he had adopted. He had searched for family members in the United States, hoping to learn more about the man whose name he had tended for so long. Then, through the Forever Promise Project, he received the message he had long hoped for: a relative wanted to be connected.

“I cannot put into words the overwhelming joy I felt. I immediately informed Sara that I was the adopter. But this was only the beginning,” Wiel wrote.

What began with an introduction soon became something more personal. Sara shared the news with her family. Emails followed, then a video call with Wiel, Sara, and her uncle. The family was finally able to thank the man who had honored Winks in their absence.

Less than two months later, Sara and Wiel met in Margraten. Wiel’s daughter Iris joined them for lunch, bringing with her another example of this remarkable Dutch tradition: she too has adopted a grave and connected with the family of her soldier.

After lunch, they went together to the cemetery. Wiel showed Sara the routine he had followed for years when placing flowers at Winks’s grave. Sara had brought white roses from her family. As they walked toward the headstone, her uncle joined by video call, allowing another branch of Winks’s American family to be present, even from afar.

At the grave, remembrance became something tangible. Sara placed the flowers and spoke in tribute to Winks, honoring not only his service and sacrifice, but the family that had remembered him and the generations still connected to his name. It was, in her words, a monumental experience.

For Wiel, the meeting changed what adoption had meant for more than two decades. The soldier he had honored was no longer only a name on a cross.

“‘My soldier,’ who for such a long time had only been a name, a date of death, and a cross, had become a real person with a life story, someone who gave his life for our freedom,” he wrote. And with that life story came something unexpected.“At the same time,” Wiel added, “I gained a wonderful family in the United States.”

This is what the Forever Promise Project seeks to preserve.

The Dutch grave adoption tradition is already an extraordinary act of gratitude. But when adopters and families are connected, remembrance becomes relationship. Families learn that their loved one has not been alone. Adopters learn the story behind the name they have honored. A grave becomes a meeting place across countries, generations, and time.

For Sara and her family, the visit to Margraten fulfilled a journey her grandfather never had the chance to make. For Wiel, it brought a long-awaited answer to years of devotion. For Winks, it restored another part of his story to the people who remember him.

The Forever Promise Project connects relatives of American service members buried or commemorated at the Netherlands American Cemetery with the Dutch adopters who honor them. If your family has a loved one buried or memorialized there, we invite you to complete our questionnaire and help preserve these meaningful connections for future generations.

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We are grateful to Sara Peterson for sharing Winks’s story with us, and to Wiel Bertrand and his family for honoring his grave with such care and devotion. If you have a Forever Promise Project story you would like to share, we would be honored to hear from you. Please write to us at info@foreverpromise.org.