The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (2013) is a novel by Fannie Flagg. The novel spans generations and geography, from 1909 Poland to the Midwest in 1941 to 2005 Alabama, intertwining the past and present. The novel explores the life of Sookie Poole, who discovers shocking family secrets in later life, revealing her connection to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II (WWII). Her discovery leads to profound insights about her family and herself. 

Flagg is an actress, comedian, and author who came to fame as a panelist on the Match Game. Her novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987) is the most well-known of her novels, and Flagg earned an Academy Award nomination for her work on adapting it for film. Flagg is also the author of Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (1981), Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! (1998), Standing in the Rainbow (2002), Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven (2006), I Still Dream About You (2010), The Whole Town’s Talking (2016), and The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop (2020).

This guide uses the 2013 edition published by Random House Books.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual violence, physical violence, and gender discrimination.

Plot Summary

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion uses a frame narrative to tell three interwoven stories: The story of Fritzi Jurdabralinski and her pilot sisters; the story of Sarah Jane “Sookie” Poole, who discovers that she is a Jurdabralinski by birth but was adopted by Lenore Simmons Krackenberry; and the story of Lenore as she adopts Sookie.

The first narrative focuses on 60-year-old Sookie Poole in Point Clear, Alabama. There, she cares for her eccentric and over-the-top mother Lenore Simmons Krackenberry. She worries that her mother, like other members of her family, will need to go to a psychiatric hospital because of the “Simmons Curse.” Sookie’s husband, Earle, reassures Sookie that she herself will be okay.

Sookie refills the birdfeeder in her yard, but she tries to make it so the blue jays don’t eat all the food before the other birds get there. The phone rings, and a man tells her that there’s an important letter arriving for her mother. Sookie receives her mother’s mail and worries that Lenore has gotten into trouble. Despite trying to avoid the letter, Sookie ends up picking it up at the post office. When she reads it, she learns that Lenore adopted her in 1945. According to her birth certificate, her mother’s name is Fritzi Willinka.

Sookie keeps the fact that she knows that she was adopted from her mother. At first, she avoids Lenore, and she starts seeing a therapist. Having always felt like she disappointed her mother—who insisted she gave up her chance to be an actress to raise Sookie and her brother—Sookie eventually learns that she is her own person and sets off to discover more about herself. When she tells her children the news of her adoption, they tell her that they still love her and appreciate how patient she has been with them. They know that their grandmother, with her Simmons family pride, has often overwhelmed Sookie.

The second half of the narrative tells the story of Sookie’s mother in interwoven flashbacks. It begins with Stanislaw Ludic Jurdabralinski arriving in the United States and moving to Pulaski, Wisconsin. With his wife Linka, he has five children: Fritzi, Wink, Gertrude, Tula, and Sophie Marie.

The Jurdabralinskis own a filling station called “Wink’s Phillips 66,” and from a young age, all of the children help out. In 1938, a campaign by Phillips Petroleum brings skywriter Billy Bevins to the filling station. He ends up asking out Fritzi, and he flies them to Milwaukee for their date. Billy also teaches Fritzi how to fly planes and hires her as a wingwalker for his flying circus in Grand Rapids, Wisconsin. They eventually become a couple, though Billy does not want to get married. Fritzi’s siblings also all get their pilot licenses, except for Tula.

When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1945, Billy and Wink both enlist and Fritzi returns home to Pulaski. Fritzi’s father has to go to a sanitarium in Arkansas because he has tuberculosis. Fritzi takes over the filling station, and she and her sisters attract customers from all over since it’s a station run by women. Eventually, as the war’s effects reach the United States, economic struggles force Fritzi and her father to close the station. Fritzi misses flying.

In 1942, Fritzi receives a telegram because the United States government is looking for licensed women pilots. She reports to Avenger Field to join the Women’s Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) program. As a pilot, she is responsible for transporting planes from factories to US air bases. She encounters negative responses from male troops and at times from people in the community, who disapprove of her “masculine” attire. Many do not know about the WASP program. 

Nevertheless, Fritzi loves flying. Her sister Gertrude eventually joins the program, but Fritzi thinks her youngest sister, Sophie, should not, due to the harassment she and the other female pilots receive. Fritzi worries that men will pretend to be nice to Sophie to take advantage of her. It is also hard and tiring work. Sophie becomes a WASP anyway.

In 1944, because of a shortage of foot soldiers and men’s desire to take over the WASPs’ transport duties to avoid active combat, the WASP program closes. Fritzi is sad to return home. Shortly thereafter, the official records of the program are sealed.

The third narrative recounts how Lenore adopted Sookie in Dallas, Texas, in 1945 after being unable to conceive. Sookie’s brother Buck is a surprise and comes along a year later.

These three narratives come together when Earle helps Sookie find Fritzi’s phone number. Sookie travels to Solvang, California, where she meets Fritzi for the first time. Fritzi confides that it is actually her sister Sophie who is Sookie’s mother. Sophie fell in love and slept with a married man, leading to Sookie’s conception. However, Sophie died in a plane crash shortly after Sookie was born. Unable to care for Sookie, Fritzi took her to the orphanage and put her name on the birth certificate so Sookie would know that she was connected to a family. 

Fritzi does not tell Sookie that the crash was the result of a man whose advances Sophie had refused. He tried to scare her while they were both flying. His plane got too close to hers, and when she moved away, she ended up losing control of her aircraft. 

When Sookie returns home, she feels excited about her connections to her birth family. However, knowing how difficult life was for women like Fritzi in the 1940s, she also has more respect for Lenore. Sookie becomes an inventor, creating a bird feeder that deters blue jays. 

The years pass, and Lenore passes away. Sookie and her daughter also go to a museum in New Mexico with an exhibit on World War II planes. A worker is annoyed when Sookie points out that they should also honor the contributions of women pilots. Sookie also goes with Fritzi to a parade honoring the WASPs for their service, and to the reunion of Fritzi and her sisters at the site of Wink’s Phillips 66. She also visits her mother’s grave.

The Epilogue takes place in 2014. Sookie is now 70 years old and feels like she is who she was meant to be. She’s proud of both of her mothers.