Legion Honor Guard turns out for Memorial Day services

BREWSTER – Memorial Day begins early for the dedicated citizens who are members of, or volunteer with, Columbia Post 97 of the Brewster American Legion. At the crack of dawn on Monday, May 31, nearly a dozen of them showed up at Locust Grove Cemetery to set out scores of large American flags that line the drive winding through the gravestones. Later in the morning six, who comprised this year’s Honor Guard would return for the official proclamation, laying of the wreath, firing squad, and taps in the presence of citizens assembled to observe the ceremonies.
The Honor Guard services began at 9 a.m. at Pateros Memorial Cemetery where earlier the previous week volunteers with the Pateros Fire Department placed the large American flags that line Cemetery Road at the crest of the overlook. Among veterans buried there are Roy D. Baker who served with the U.S. Army in Korea, and George ‘Roy’ Gebbers who was an Army POW in the Philippines during WWII.
At 9:30 a.m. the Honor Guard paused on the middle of the Bridge Street bridge to dedicate a wreath in memory of those veterans lost at sea.
The Honor Guard’s third of six stops was at Packwood Memorial Cemetery on Dyer Hill for a service among the pines and native plants at the rustic resting place. Among veterans interred there is WWII Navy veteran Raymond Spence, and WWII Army vet Eugene Housden.
An intimate gathering greeted the Legionnaires at Fort Okanogan Cemetery along State Route 97 north of Monse and the final resting place of Korean War veterans Donald Woodward and John Cook, among others.
The largest crowd of the day welcomed the Honor Guard at Locust Grove where veterans buried there include Jake Holloway (WWII) and Navy veteran Claude Gillespie, whose father, David, founded the Brewster Herald – later to become the Quad City Herald - in 1901.
The Honor Guard returned to its Brewster headquarters for the concluding service at the Legon Park memorial at noon where the day’s temperature on the hot, sunny holiday would push 90 degrees.