After 97 years of freezing, thawing, cracking, and crumbling, the World War I memorial that sits on the southwest corner of the Common has been repaired and restored, thanks to the efforts of the War Monument Restoration Committee (WMRC). A ceremony to rededicate the memorial will be held Sunday, Nov. 11, at 11 a.m., the 100-year anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I.
The program for the ceremony will include the reading of names of the 64 Harvard residents who served in World War I by state Sen. Jamie Eldridge and state Rep. Jen Benson. Also speaking will be Paul C. Roberts, the grandson of Paul B. Roberts, whose name is among those who served (see below for more about Roberts). At 11 a.m., exactly 100 years after the fighting ceased, the bells of the Unitarian Universalist Church and the Congregational Church will toll (see full program at right).
The committee’s goal was to restore the monument in a way that would respect those who originally designed and built it. The cast-concrete base was cleaned and repaired by Regonini-Zoll Memorials of Clinton. But the cast concrete in the middle portion of the base was beyond repair, so it was replaced with granite in the same shape and size as the original memorial. WMRC Chair Jon Schoenberg said the committee tried to match the granite color to the concrete base, but the base had not yet been cleaned, so the colors don’t match as well as members hoped they would. He added that over time the concrete will likely revert back to a color closer to that of the granite.
The two plaques on the monument are the original plaques, cleaned and restored by Regonini-Zoll. One lists the names of the Harvard residents who served in World War I. The other memorializes the only Harvard resident killed in that war, Private Edward Enoch Thomas, who died of wounds received on the battlefield in Chateau Thierry, France, in July 1918. Schoenberg said that committee members, with the aid of the veterans agent, plaques in the Old Bromfield portion of the library, and the Harvard Historical Society, had found about a dozen additional names of residents who might have served in World War I. The group considered adding another plaque for those names, but the lists from the three sources did not match, and in the end, a decision was made not to add any names as they could not be verified.
Community funds and donations
Revive Painting & Finishing of Clinton painted the flagpole using the Harvard Fire Department’s ladder truck and assistance from Harvard firefighters, and the town purchased a new flag. The large flag that will be flown during the ceremony belongs to Harvard’s American Legion Post 119, a gift from the former commander of that post, the late Paul Johnston.
The total cost for the restoration came to about $25,000 according to Schoenberg. At Special Town Meeting in 2017, the town voted to use $20,000 in Community Preservation Commission funds for the restoration. Two thousand dollars came from the “100 Cities/100 Memorials” matching grant challenge sponsored by the United States World War One Centennial Commission and the Pritzker Military Museum and Library. Donations from private citizens, Harvard Help, and two film production companies, Castle Rock Productions and Netflix, brought in enough to match the Pritzker grant and then some. Schoenberg said the available funds will likely just cover the amount needed. In addition to those who made financial donations, the committee acknowledges the work of the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Historical Commission for their help in moving the project along.
The committee’s work is just beginning. Members hope to memorialize all of the veterans who have served in the wars fought since the Spanish-American War. The group’s next project will be a World War II memorial, which the committee hopes will be more permanent than the wooden Roll of Honor that was dedicated on the Common in November 1944. The board deteriorated and was eventually taken down, and its current whereabouts are unknown. But photos of the board and the names on it still exist, and Schoenberg said the committee will work with the veterans agent and the Historical Society, as well as some of the World War II veterans still living in town to get a complete list of names. He added that the committee is working with the Garden Club on a plan that would incorporate plantings and benches into the memorial’s plans to make it an area where residents and relatives could sit and reflect.
In Memoriam: Paul B. Roberts
Paul B. Roberts served in France during World War I as a ambulance driver. (Courtesy photo)
War Monument Restoration Committee Chair Jon Schoenberg said the group was surprised earlier this year when it heard from an El Paso, Texas resident who asked why the plaques had been taken down from the World War I monument on Harvard’s Common. That resident turned out to be Paul C. Roberts, grandson of Paul B. Roberts, one of Harvard’s World War I veterans. Schoenberg said Roberts visits the memorial regularly and was concerned when the plaques disappeared. When the committee was putting together the rededication ceremony program, it decided to invite Roberts to speak about his grandfather. He accepted and graciously provided the Press with the following information as well as a photo taken of his grandfather in 1917 in his Army uniform.
Paul B. Roberts was born in February 1893. His father owned what is now the Hazel farm on Ayer Road, and the family lived there during the summer, retreating to the Boston suburbs in the winter. Roberts graduated from Harvard University in 1914 and from Harvard Law School in 1917. During World War I, he served in France with the Army Medical Corps as an ambulance driver “in part because of his love and knowledge of horses.” He inherited the Harvard farm in 1935 and maintained the summer/winter living arrangements. He died in 1951 from medical issues caused by injuries sustained in France during the war.
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What was Armistice Day?
While Armistice Day is no more, for 35 years it served as a somber reminder of the toll the “war to end all wars” had taken on much of the world.
The first observance of Armistice Day was Nov. 11, 1919, one year after the armistice was signed and fighting ended in World War I. It became a national holiday in 1938, but its name was changed to Veterans Day in 1954 to honor veterans who served in all the wars that America fought.
While fighting officially ended at the “11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month,” the armistice was actually signed at 5 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918. Almost 11,000 casualties, including 2,700 deaths, occurred on the last day of fighting, most during the six hours of daylight after the armistice was signed. Some commanders did not receive word of the signing, while others gave orders to continue fighting until the 11 a.m. hour.
The last American killed in World War I was Private Henry Gunther, who charged toward German artillery armed only with a bayonet. He was shot and killed at 10:59 a.m.
World War I casualty estimates vary, but conservative sources put the number killed on all sides in military action at about 8 million, and the number of civilians killed at about 6 million.
The number wounded in military action was estimated to be about 21 million. Of those, 7 million were permanently maimed. Many sources attribute the grievous nature of the injuries sustained in this war to the use of exploding artillery shells and mustard gas.
A number of books have been written specifically about Armistice Day, the events leading up to it and following it, and the armistice itself, including the role its terms may have played in setting the stage for World War II. For a briefer reading experience, there’s “A Hundred Years After the Armistice” by Adam Hochschild in the Nov. 5, 2018, issue of The New Yorker magazine.
Source: “11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour—Armistice Day, 1918” by Joseph E. Persico
