Vegas woman among oldest female Marine veterans

Like the lone candle on her cake, Laurene Quateman's eyes sparkled when she heard the Marine Corps League men and women veterans chime in for her 98th "Happy Birthday" song.

It was a slightly off-key rendition that marked the occasion Wednesday, filling the room at her Las Vegas assisted-living home with warmth and memories from her days during World War II.

Quateman, known then as 1st Lt. "Laurie" Felchlin Niermann, is believed to be one of the three oldest women Marine vets in the nation receiving health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to her daughter, Nancy Edwards.

"She's a tenacious woman who never complained even under the worst circumstances," Edwards said. "She's positive, open-minded and loving of all people from all backgrounds."

Quateman was a nun first, then an enlisted Marine clerk typist who became a stateside stenographer supervisor and also procured materials for the war effort, according to her honorable discharge papers. After the war, she became a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps Women's Reserves, serving as a lieutenant until 1949.

"I had a platoon. We did a lot of marching," she said Wednesday.

Born Sept. 16, 1917, in Fond Du Lac, Wis., she grew up on a farm with her younger brother, Jim, the children of Leonard and Elizabeth Felchlin, who operated a cheese factory and traveled by horse and buggy.

In her 20s, she joined the School Sisters of Saint Francis convent but left after 4½ years.

"Children were so precious. I went to confession and told the priest I thought I really wanted my own children," she told Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrisson in 2006. The priest told her, "You'd make a better mother than a nun."

She became a secretary and met her first husband, Robert Niermann. They went to San Diego, where she sang soprano for a USO trio, "The Clef Dwellers." After Robert joined the Marines in early 1944, she enlisted in April 1944 and served at Camp LeJeune, N.C., until October 1945.

After the war they settled in Chicago. She was a sixth-grade teacher, and also worked as a secretary, a contact lens company analyst, and a part-time model for the Shirley Hamilton agency.

Then she pursued a career as an airline reservationist, working for United Airlines in Chicago, then Western and Delta in Minneapolis in 1970 before transferring to Las Vegas, where she "remarried the love of her life, Joseph Quateman" in 1972, her daughter said.

She later worked for the Las Vegas News Bureau and Las Vegas Convention Center.

Quateman said at her birthday party that she's not convinced women in the military should be serving in combat roles.

"Where are the children going to come from?" she asked.

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow him: @KeithRogers2