COLRAIN — After four years of work, the Veterans Memorial Park Committee is set to unveil the new Memorial Park on Veterans Day.
“We are happy with the way it turned out,” said Veterans Memorial Park Committee member Joan McQuade. “The park needed a new face.”
On Friday, Nov. 11, starting at 10 a.m., there will be a Veterans Day event complete with an opening ceremony, prayer, veteran speaker and patriotic singing. But committee members are particularly excited about welcoming people to the new park.
What used to stand on the Town Common where Greenfield Road meets Jacksonville and Main roads was a handmade wooden sign featuring the names of the roughly 300 Colrain veterans who fought in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The committee took note of all the names and attempted to find any information they could about the veterans.
The committee published advertisements in the Greenfield Recorder soliciting requests for DD214s (documents that are used to verify military service) and looked in the local graveyards seeking information about the people named on the old sign.
Now, three stones display the names of veterans from the aforementioned wars. One empty stone remains.
“Someone else will handle that,” McQuade explained, referring to the stone that will include the names of veterans from 1975 and later.
The park cost about $15,000 to build, McQuade said. The Veterans Memorial Park Committee did some fundraising, but got most of its money through the town budget.
The new park also features a rock that had been displayed in the old park that memorializes veterans of older wars. This rock was moved several feet to be in front of the tree on the common. The engraving pays tribute to soldiers from the “War for the Preservation of the Union,” the “World War” and the “Spanish War” — wars that are now known as the Civil War, World War I and the Spanish-American War.
Along with McQuade, Les Chadwick, Elaine Stanley, David Nims and Sharon Call all worked to build the park as members of the committee. Call died about a year and a half ago during the process of working on the park. A bench will soon be in place to honor Call’s work on the project.
McQuade explained she was moved to be part of the Veterans Memorial Park Committee because her late husband and father are both veterans. She said the “park speaks for itself” when asked why it is important to memorialize Colrain’s veterans.
“There are quite a few names here,” she noted, “considering the size of the town.”
Bella Levavi can be reached at blevavi@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.