Jennifer Weaver-Neist's book, "Give My Love to Everybody: Letters From a World War II Soldier," amounts to a 10-year labor of love — for a man she never even met.

As she edited her nonfiction book, based on a young Quarryville infantry soldier's experiences in boot camp, his reluctance to kill, and his dream of coming home to his fiancée, she felt closer to her subject than many editors might.

The soldier, Ralph Edward "Bud" Shank, was her great-uncle, who fought briefly with the 104th Infantry Division, also known as the Timberwolves, a division founded in Oregon in 1942.

A resident of Portland, Ore., Weaver-Neist's roots run deep in Lancaster County. She was helping some family members move when Shank's letters turned up. She was hooked immediately and felt she had to learn more about her great-uncle, who was killed by a land mine on a voluntary mission in Holland in late 1944, less than a month after being sent overseas.

"I had heard stories about Bud my whole life," Weaver-Neist said. "What I really related to was coming across his personal effects. His wallet was literally a time capsule. … That's when he suddenly became a real person. He was more than a sad story."

Weaver-Neist spent years corresponding with Shank's army mates and in 2006, with eight surviving Timberwolf veterans, toured battlefields where her great-uncle's platoon fought in Belgium, Holland and Germany.

"The Timberwolf Division encountered some pretty rough stuff," Weaver-Neist said. "The Timberwolves liberated a lot of villages. The people were so grateful to them." There's a Timberwolfstrasse in Standdaarbuiten, Netherlands.

Now she feels "I love him as if I had met him. I do feel connected to him, as if I had actually known him."

"The whole purpose of this book was not the book. It was the family time we had," she added.

Shank was buried in a temporary grave in the Henri Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium, before his family brought him home to Quarryville Cemetery.

To learn more about Weaver-Neist's book, visit www.damerocketpress.com.

Jennifer Weaver-Neist will read from her book 2:30-3:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 23, at Quarryville Library. The program will conclude with a visit to Shank's nearby grave site.