Flags and flowers: Volunteers preserve a Harvard Memorial Day tradition

The grave of smallpox victim Captain Benjamin Stewart on Poor Farm Road. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Thanks to a small band of volunteer veterans in town, nearly 400 graves of the Harvard men and women who served in the military since the days of the Revolutionary War received American flags last Saturday, May 16. The tradition of placing flags on veterans’ graves for Memorial Day grew out of the post-Civil War tradition of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers from that war (see “How Memorial Day began” below). It takes place across the United States and now includes the graves of all veterans, not just those who died in action.

In Harvard, volunteers place flags in the Town Center Cemetery, where many Revolutionary War and Civil War soldiers are buried, and at Bellevue Cemetery, where most of the service members who died after the Civil War are buried. Veterans’ graves are marked with metal flag holders, some of which identify which war the veteran fought in. Flags are also placed at the center monument of the Shaker Cemetery, where graveside flags are not allowed. An estimated seven veterans are buried there.

In addition, a flag is placed at the grave of Captain Benjamin Stewart, a Revolutionary War soldier, on Poor Farm Road and at the Still River Village memorial for Corporal Roger Skillings, who died in action in the Korean War. Eight or nine veterans are also buried at the St. Benedict Center on Still River Road, and flags are placed on those graves by the sisters who reside there.

Geraniums for all

This year, the gravesite flag contingent consisted of army veterans Steve and Nancy Cronin, navy veteran Don Green, interim Veterans’ Agent and army veteran Mike Detillion, and Robb Ricker, a neighbor of the Cronins. In addition to flags, Green and the Cronins plant geraniums at the grave of every veteran in the Town Center and Bellevue cemeteries. The geraniums are delivered to the cemeteries before the parade, and the flowers are distributed to the individual graves by young parade-watchers. “We encourage the kids who are attending the parade to pick up a geranium and place it on a flagged grave,” said Nancy Cronin. At Bellevue Cemetery, where a smaller crowd attends the parade, volunteer firefighters and their families help distribute the flowers. The volunteer vets return a few days after the parade to plant the flowers.

Note: Information is from a count of the Town Center and Bellevue cemetery flags and grave markers. Those buried at the Shaker cemetery and at St. Benedict’s are not included.

The Cronins began helping to place flags about 20 years ago when Korean War veteran Paul “P.J.” Johnston, who decorated the graves for many years, asked for help. About ten years ago, the Cronins and ex-Veterans’ Agent Dennis Lyddy enlisted the help of Don Green. A few years later, Green also took over veteran Warren Harrod’s geranium-planting job, and with the help of family and the Cronins, the task of planting almost 400 flowers at gravesites is completed in just a few days after Memorial Day.

Reading the names

This year I accompanied Nancy Cronin as she placed her flags, and while the other volunteers moved quickly through the cemeteries, Cronin took the time to read the grave marker of each veteran. “If we don’t read them, who will?” she said. Grass growing over the flat stones made some difficult to read. “We’re losing these plates,” Cronin remarked, as she used her hands to pull the grass away from the names. These flat markers, supplied by the U.S. government free of charge to veterans who die on active duty or are honorably discharged, mark the graves of many veterans who served in World War I and after.

Who supplies the flags and holders?

The flags themselves are purchased by the town’s veterans’ agent, and the state pays 75 percent of the cost, while the town picks up the remaining 25 percent. The metal flag holders that mark the graves of veterans used to be provided by Johnston, and Nancy Cronin told the Press that she didn’t know where he got them, but when he didn’t have enough, he’d borrow some from his brother Peter, also a Korean War veteran, who lives in Ayer. Johnston died in 2009, and in recent years, his old supply of flag holders has run out. A few local veterans have stepped up to purchase more, but Green said that they have asked the Cemetery Commission to purchase them in the future. Interim Veterans’ agent Mike Detillion confirmed that he is currently working on a request to the commission for flag holders.

How Memorial Day began

Memorial Day grew out of a nation’s grief. The Civil War claimed about 750,000 lives, according to demographic historian David Hacker, and touched almost every town and village in the country. To understand the enormity of that loss, the equivalent with today’s population would be the deaths of more than 7 million Americans.

In 1866, the first spring after the war, people in many communities took fresh flowers to the cemeteries to decorate soldiers’ graves. While many towns, in both the North and the South, claim to have been first to do so, in fact it was a nationwide movement that grew from nationwide loss. The dates of these ceremonies differed across the country, depending on when spring came to each place.

In 1868, the largest veterans’ group in the North—the Grand Army of the Republic—designated May 30 as the official date for Decoration Day, as it was then generally called. In that same year, the first large observance took place at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Union and Confederate soldiers were buried. The tradition of marking the graves with small flags goes back to that ceremony.

After World War I, Decoration Day was extended to include those who had fallen in all the nation’s wars. Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday in 1971. Like several other federal holidays, it was moved to a Monday—the last Monday in May.

— Marty Green

Harvard’s war casualties after the Civil War

Although the names of most Harvard men who died fighting in the Civil War are prominently displayed on the Civil War memorial in the center of town, only two of the seven who died fighting subsequent wars are personally memorialized. Edward Enoch Thomas, who died in France fighting in World War I, is named on the World War flagpole memorial on the southwest corner of the Common. Roger B. Skillings, who was killed in action during the Korean War, is memorialized on a stone near the Still River Post Office.

World War II honor roll gone

In 1944, an honor roll was erected on the Common that named all the Harvard men and women who served in World War II. The names of those who died during that service were designated with a star. But the memorial was made of wood, and when it deteriorated, it was taken down and never replaced. No one knows its current whereabouts, and the names of the four men who died in WWII now appear only in archived materials at the Harvard Historical Society:

Robert Austin Brown, Army private. Killed in action in Mateur, Tunisia, on April 28, 1943.
David Richard Reinhart, Army sergeant. Killed in action in Germany on Feb. 28, 1945.
John Edward Stephens, Merchant Marines officers’ messmate. Died at sea on Feb. 7, 1943, when his vessel was torpedoed in the Atlantic Ocean.
James Lincoln Williams, Army Air Corps second lieutenant. Killed in training when his plane crashed near Yuma, Arizona, on June 20, 1944. Buried in Bellevue Cemetery, Harvard.

Another Harvard soldier, Army private Lucius Chilson Barry, was a casualty of the Spanish-American War. He died at Fort Myer, Virginia of typhoid fever, on Aug. 31, 1898, a few weeks after fighting ended in that war. He is buried in Bellevue Cemetery’s only grave with a Spanish-American War marker.

—Joan Elyesil

The Press thanks the Harvard Historical Society and employees at the Harvard Public Library for their help compiling this information.

Flags and flowers: Volunteers preserve a Harvard Memorial Day tradition

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