Harvard residents of all ages were lined up along flag-lined Mass. Ave. and Ayer Road, parents congregating in shady areas and kids energetically waving flags as the Memorial Day parade moved through town center. Many were in high spirits as public Memorial Day celebrations returned for the first time since 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some onlookers had made their way over from the pancake breakfast hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Church earlier that morning, another staple of the May holiday in Harvard.
Monday morning began bright, warm, and with mercifully low humidity for the uniformed Harvard veterans, 15 members of the Harvard Fire Department, and Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops who made up the Memorial Day procession.
The color guard pauses to pay respect to those veterans who are buried in the Harvard Center Cemetery. (Photo by Thomas Kilian)
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Sgt. Zachary Grady, representing the 215th Army Band, plays taps at the Devens Memorial Day observance. (Photo by Jesse Boudreau)
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After congregating by the Town Hall, the parade began moving down Ayer Road toward its first stop, the Civil War monument. Retired Army 1st Lt. Thomas Callahan placed a wreath before the statue, and Boy Scout Michael Bretz played taps. Bretz had stepped in at the last minute to perform taps on the bugle at each monument; it was the first time he ever played the instrument, though he does play trumpet. In past years, the historic declaration of May 30 as Memorial Day by General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868, was read at this spot. Retired Army Maj. Steve Cronin, the event organizer, decided to do away with the reading. “It was written by a general,” he said, smiling, to a Press reporter,. “It’s boring.”
The procession then continued to Center Cemetery, where Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts placed potted geraniums at veterans’ gravesites while retired Navy Lt. Frederick Hinchliffe II placed the wreath at Founders’ Flagpole.
Back on the Common, at the memorial for World War II, Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf war veterans, retired Army Maj. Nancy Cronin placed the wreath. The procession also took a moment to recognize Harvard resident Barbara Hunicke, a 99-year-old veteran, who was there with her daughter Sara Warren. Hunicke was part of the WAVE (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency service) program. During WWII, she worked for the Navy Bureau of Ships in Washington, D.C.
At the Common flagpole, retired Army 1st Lt. Steve Colwell placed a wreath at the World War I memorial. Steve Cronin read a short prayer and introduced the keynote speaker, retired. Air Force Capt. Joseph Theriault. In his remarks, Cronin noted Theriault’s 22 years of military service and more than 10 years of public service, notably with the Harvard Historical Society.
Theriault intertwined his remarks on American military service with the emotive poem “In Flanders Fields” by Royal Canadian Army Lt. Col. John McCrae. In remembering Harvard’s veterans, Theriault said, “These are the shoulders that brought us where we are today. These were the keepers of our Bill of Rights. So let us remember those veterans who served, and since that liberty bell rang, sacrificed, by the legions, their lives for the cause of American democracy.”
After Theriault’s remarks, Girl Scouts Meaghan Arata, Shehla Rahman, and Savannah Senykoff read the 36 names of those who had died since Memorial Day 2019, ringing a bell after each name to commemorate that person’s life. (See the list of deceased veterans below.)
Rosemary McKeever, a Harvard resident, said she attends the parade every year and was happy for it to be a public event again. Her son, a Boy Scout, was participating in the parade. In addition, there are many veterans in the McKeever family. “I appreciate that [the ceremony] is solemn and respectful in Harvard,” she said. The death of the McKeever family friend, Air Force veteran Charles Brackett, was honored in the ceremony at the flagpole.
After closing remarks by Steve Cronin, the majority of the gathering dispersed to their own holiday celebrations. The assembled veterans and members of the Harvard Fire Department, a few Boy Scout troop members, along with a few remaining residents, drove over to the Roger Skillings Memorial in Still River.
The procession concluded at the VFW monument in Bellevue Cemetery, with the final wreath placement and playing of taps. Parents distributed more potted red geraniums, which children again placed at each veteran’s gravesite, marked with a flag.
