Recalling Memorial memories (5/22/03)

Recent events have noted many heroic acts on the part of Americans. But many acts go unknown. Memorial Day recalls to me the Unknown Soldiers Grave I first became aware of as a child.

Later I would come to know the significance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. I visited this years ago as part of a class trip — a class that this year celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Class of 1953 of Jefferson High School, a school long-ago absorbed into a more complex.

An Unknown Soldiers Grave exists in the Bluff Point Cemetery in Pike Township in Jay County. Years ago my mother said on Memorial Day, “Sister, put a flower here; it is an unknown soldiers’ grave.” He said this in a broken, gravely voice.

My father and his two brothers served in World War I. My father came home; his brother did not. My father could never speak of it; he did not need to.

We three sisters understood by his manner what patriotism is. It has forever been a part of us.

Each Memorial Day we put flowers at the grassy spot where my father indicated the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.

This Memorial Day an official marker marks the spot. It reads, UNKNOWN SOLDIER. It does matter what war or where.

Patriotism and sacrifice know no place. America knows this and so do we three sisters who placed the marker.

Jane Garringer Stolte,

daughter of Grover

Garringer, Spencerville

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