GREENFIELD — Local residents congregated in remembrance across the region on Memorial Day to honor loved ones killed in the line of duty and while serving their country. 

Military service members were commemorated in at least 20 ways across Franklin County this year, with most towns taking part in some kind of observance. While the majority of ceremonies, services and parades were held on Monday, some people, such as those in Whately, began paying respects over the weekend. They did so with a parade, spring festival and dedication ceremony for six new plaques installed at Veterans Park last week, honoring the military service of residents spanning from the French and Indian War to present day. The plaques not only honor those who served in wars, but also include those who served active duty during peacetime and those who served in the National Guard and reserves, a magnitude of commemoration that Historical Society President Neal Abraham said is rare.

“Whately is very unusual in honoring all of those who served,” said Abraham, who helped conduct research and spoke during the morning’s plaque dedication alongside Fire Chief John Hannum. “Some honor just a few wars: the more recent wars, World Wars I and II and Vietnam. Some only honor those who died when they served. We are honoring everyone who served in all of those different time periods.”

Abraham expressed gratitude toward those whose research made the plaques come to fruition, including Whately Historical Society Archivist Derek Smith, Jim Ross, Lawrence Ashman, Ray Billel and Alan Thackeray. He also appreciated the “really big turnout” for the dedication ceremony, for the preceding parade and for the festivities that followed at Town Hall.

South Deerfield’s Memorial Day service, held Monday morning, was similarly well-attended, drawing hundreds of people to Town Common for an invocation, a wreath presentation, patriotic musical performances and commemorative addresses. Included in the ceremony was an annual speech from Gold Star Mother Kathleen Belanger, whose son, Army Sgt. Gregory Belanger, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Iraq in August 2003. During her address, Belanger revealed that this year’s speech would be her last, concluding a tradition of more than 15 years to allow other community members to share their family service stories.

“We are here today to honor our town’s soldiers; not just my son, but all of the sons and all of the daughters,” she read. “It is through their dedication, their courage and their sacrifice that freedom rings and there’s a future generation that will enjoy the freedoms that we have laid the   pathway for.”

As South Dee rfield’s ceremony concluded, Greenfield’s events began. Opening with a parade at 10 a.m. starting from Federal Street and ending at Main Street’s Veterans’ Mall, the day’s commemorations also included the governor’s proclamation as presented by Mayor Roxann Wedegartner and remarks by Upper Pioneer Valley Veterans’ Services District Deputy Director Stacey Geneczko.

“I always look forward to this day,” Wedegartner said during the ceremony. “It’s a day … to reflect and remember those in your families and among your friends’ families from all wars who have fallen.”

Continuing, the mayor shared the story of how less than a month after the Confederate States of America surrendered in 1865, newly-emancipated slaves exhumed the bodies of Union soldiers hastily buried at a Confederate prison in Charleston, South Carolina, reinterred them in a proper cemetery and organized a memorial march at the prison, which had formerly been a race track. This story, Wedegartner said, may help people “more fully understand Memorial Day and what it is that calls us here,” as the march may have been the first in the United States to commemorate fallen soldiers.

Later in Greenfield’s ceremony, Upper Pioneer Valley Veterans’ Service District Deputy Director Stacey Geneczko, who served as an active duty medic in the Air Force, delivered a poem she wrote for the occasion.

“Somewhere, a young child feels the squeeze of her grandfather’s hand, tears in his eyes, as a flag is lowered,” she read. “The color guard stands by. Sounds of a bugler fills the air. ‘Day is done, gone the sun.’ Gone, yet not forgotten.”

Reach Julian Mendoza at 413-930-4231 or jmendoza@recorder.com.

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