The number is probably around 1,700, but Cheryl Whitfield has never counted.

She doesn't know the number of times over the past couple of years she's donned her uniform of black vest and slacks, crossed her heart with a white-gloved hand as the flag-draped casket passed, or bent to squeeze the palm of an old soldier's widow, whispering a few words of consolation and gratitude for his service.

The Champions-area grandmother just knows, like many of the other 28 women who make up the “National Memorial Ladies,” what she does at the Houston National Cemetery is her mission, her calling.

“I want people to know these guys are not forgotten,” Whitfield says.

Whitfield, inspired by the Arlington Ladies who attend military funerals in the Washington, D.C., area, started her own version in Houston in September 2008. She began alone, recruiting volunteers through newspaper ads. Now, the group, with two ladies on call each day, covers all 60 or so funerals each week at the Houston National Cemetery. On behalf of “the American people,” they offer condolences to next of kin, complete with handwritten cards.

“When I drive through the gates in the morning, and there's dew covering everything, it's like I step into a different world,” Whitfield says. “There's nothing behind me. It's a peacefulness I feel.”

On a recent morning, two members of the VFW District 4 Honor Guard carefully slid the flag off the simple black casket of 57-year-old Vietnam veteran Thomas Stanford II. They folded it into a starry wedge and presented it to his sister, Linda Shafer. Whitfield held the Channelview woman's hand, assuring her that her brother was in a better place and his service wasn't forgotten.

‘They made it special'

After the ceremony, Shafer said her brother, a proud veteran of the Army, Marines, and the Merchant Marines who flew a POW banner outside his home next to the American flag, would have appreciated the gesture. “It was awesome,” she said. “They made it special. I think he would have loved it.”

At times, Whitfield has attended eight services in a single day. Like the other ladies, she shows up in the rain, on the coldest winter days, and all summer when the rising mercury melts her makeup and leaves her feet swelling in her shoes.

At times, Whitfield has attended eight services in a single day. Like the other ladies, she shows up in the rain, on the coldest winter days, and all summer when the rising mercury melts her makeup and leaves her feet swelling in her shoes.

She says her group serves as the “calm in the storm,” offering a warm touch, a kind word to soothe families' grief. Sometimes, their words are met only with blank stares, sometimes with grateful tears.

“Some of them will have that desperate look in their eyes. It's like they want me to tell them something they can hang on to,” Whitfield says.

Whitfield says she considers her role in the service as an honor, one that's given her more appreciation for life. “I don't leave here depressed. I leave here thinking we've got to cherish all the time we have.”

Most of the ladies are from military families. Whitfield's 89-year-old father flew a B-17 during World War II. The ladies range from retirees to real estate agents to 33-year-old Gina Moretto of Spring, who finds a baby sitter for her 20-week-old so she can attend funerals once a month.

The hardest services, the ones that Whitfield and her fellow volunteers can't shake from their minds, are the services for 20-somethings who leave behind young spouses and sometimes children.

“I did Petty Officer (Zarian) Wood last week,” Whitfield says, referring to the Navy hospital corpsman from Houston killed in Afghanistan. “It stays with you. I mean, I'm still thinking about it. Those are the ones that you walk away, and you feel drained. And you feel like we are in a war and people don't realize it. And he's 29.”

Difficult memories

One service Marilyn Koepp attended last fall haunts her. The 62-year-old retired teacher from Spring presented her condolence card to the 3-year-old son of a soldier killed in action. The boy sat on his mother's lap, near an urn with his father's ashes.

“He looked at me with his big, giant, brown eyes and said, ‘Where's my daddy?'” Koepp recalled.

She said she told him his daddy was in his heart, that he'd always be there, watching after him.

One of the ladies' most important duties is attending the services of veterans who have no one else. A few times each week, the Memorial Lady is the only person in attendance. If Harris County makes the funeral arrangements, the veteran's body is typically driven to the service in a cream-colored 1989 Cadillac hearse, accompanied by social workers, who accept the folded flag and the condolence card.

“It's sad because, you know, I'm there, and they play taps just like there's 100 people there,” Whitfield says. “This man fought in a war, but he was also a kid, and he was also a teenager and a young man, and then he dies, and nothing.”

The only ones there

Once last year, Koepp said, she watched three funerals conducted within about five minutes, none with family present. The third soldier's name was James, whose grave she still visits and adorned with a wreath at Christmas.

“Why we all do it is for that soldier,” she says. “To be buried alone, after all they did for us, I have a very difficult time understanding that.”

Koepp, whose father fought in D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, and whose husband was a naval officer in Vietnam, said she understands much of what the veterans and their families went though because her own family has lived it.

Her service in Memorial Ladies is the best way she can think of to honor the memories of those who fought and sacrificed for her freedom.

“I've told the escorts, ‘I'm just telling you right now, at some point, you'll be bringing me in a wheelchair,” she says. “Because I'll never stop doing this.'”

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com