Page 34 - July Banner 2017_Neat

Page 34 July 2017 The Catoctin Banner Newspaper
Thurmont Dedicates the First Veterans
1922 Memorial Park in the County
by James Rada, Jr.
When the men of the Thurmont District of Frederick County began
returning home from World War I, they were feted with a parade through
Thurmont. People lined the streets to see their returning heroes. They
cheered, and they cried.
In that, Thurmont was not unusual. Just about every town in the
country celebrated its returning soldiers from The War to End All Wars.
It wasn’t enough for Thurmont, though. Some citizens realized that
those who had given the most weren’t there to march in the parade. Eleven
men from the district had died in the fighting of World War I.
Rosa Waters, whose son James died from Spanish Flu while serving in
the military during the war, led a community group that wanted to create a
lasting memorial to the town’s servicemen.
The Grimes Estate donated a piece of land on East Main Street for a
memorial park. Ground was broken in the spring of 1922, and “The work
of transforming the meadow into Memorial Park was begun and there will
be no let-up until it is finished,” reported the Catoctin Clarion.
Committee members began soliciting donations for the landscaping
and construction work of the park. More than $3,000 was raised (around
$44,000 in today’s dollars), which more than paid for the initial expenses
of the park.
On Armistice Day 1922, a parade that included Veterans and students
from Thurmont High School marched through Thurmont. “The town was
in holiday attire for the occasion. Flags were displayed from every business
place and private home, many of the private homes becoming elaborately
decorated with the national colors,” the Frederick Daily News reported.
www.TheCatoctinBanner.com Published by www.EPlusPromotes.com
The Photo Courtesy of Thurmontimages.com
parade
passed under
the stone
arch that
marked the
entrance to
the park.
Hundreds
of citizens
watched the
parade pass
and then
followed it
to the park.
The
speakers
and special The undated photo is believed to be from the end of WWI, but it may show
the original arch entry for Memorial Park.
guests sat on
the rostrum,
which had been built from native stone. Surrounding the rostrum were
eleven scarlet oaks that had been planted in memory of the young men who
had died in the war. They were: Louis R. Adams, Murry S. Baker, Benjamin
E. Cline, Edgar J. Eyler, William T. Fraley, Roy O. Kelbaugh, Jesse M.
Pryor, Clifford M. Stitely, Raymond L. Stull, Stanley M. Toms, and James S.
Waters.
The park also featured four bronze tablets, three of which had names of
Thurmont Veterans inscribed on them. The widow of Lt. Edgar Eyler, who
had died in the war and for whom the Thurmont American Legion was
named, unveiled the tablets.
The Frederick Daily News reported that “Frederick County’s first
memorial to war heroes and the first in the state it is said, was dedicated with
appropriate and interesting ceremonies at Thurmont Saturday morning.”
One of the speakers at the event was Folger McKinsey, the “Bentztown
Bard.” He told the crowd, “You have paid more attention to Armistice
Day than any other town in the state; you have great reason to be proud of
yourselves.”
He also read a poem inspired by the event that was published in the
Baltimore Sun a few days later. It read in part:
And they shall turn and read these carven names,
And they shall see again the battle-flames,
And tell again the story of the strife
And gaze again as if across the seas
To those old fields of Flanders and Argonne,
The poppied fields, the shattered Picardy,
Belleau and Meuse – and be so glad that we
In our own time of golden memory,
Looking beyond the tumult and the wave,
Have planted here this tribute to the brave,
The true, the fine, the noble and the fond!
George Wireman noted in his book, Gateway to the Mountains,
“Although the memorial was a community project, it did not officially
become a part of community property until November 11, 1928, when it
was turned over to the Town Commissioners and accepted on behalf of the
citizens, by Mayor Frank L. Cady.”
The park continues to serve Thurmont today as a memorial to its sons
and daughters who serve in the Armed Forces.