Vegreville celebrating Decoration Day Sept. 11
Felicity Bergman
Staff Reporter
Vegreville Legion will be hosting a ceremony on September 11 at the Vegreville Riverside Cemetery in celebration of Decoration Day.
Decoration Day, which is now called Memorial Day in the U.S started immediately after the U.S Civil War, where there were hundreds of thousands of casualties buried on domestic soil.
“It has evolved into a very important day of remembrance and celebration there (in the U.S) and more recently it has started to be observed in Canada,” said Vegreville Legion President, Rod Stewart. “My personal opinion is that it is an excellent idea, because it allows us to focus on our war dead on November 11.”
“Decoration Day as we observe it is to recognize a service of the people who survived the war and came back and became valuable members of our society, and so many of them had both physical and mental wounds, (which were) often hidden or unrecognized. They had difficulties coping in a lot of cases, but they persevered.”
Decoration Day is a way of saying thanks and letting them and their families know that they are not forgotten.
Right now the Legion’s ceremony only includes Riverside Ceremony, but Stewart says he knows there are veterans buried in surrounding communities.
“Ultimately,” said Stewart, “It would be ideal to be able to recognize all of them.”
Stewart would like to offer an open invitation to anybody that has a family member buried in Riverside in particular to come out to the ceremony on September 11.
“If there family member’s grave hasn’t been marked with a Canadian flag,” said Stewart. “we’ve got additional Canadian flags there that will be specially marked so that we can identify them and put them for recognition in future years.”
The Vegreville Legion is also trying to track veterans who have been buried in church and community cemeteries throughout the area. Stewart says he would be very pleased if any family members wanted to bring in a note stating who they are, who their family member is, what cemetery they are buried in and what area of the cemetery, so that they can, at some point in the future recognize all of these people.
The Decoration Day ceremony at the Vegreville Riverside Cemetery will be held promptly at 2PM on September 11th, with legion members promenading in at 1:45PM. The ceremony is open to the public, particularly to anyone whose family has or had military service. Legion members and guests will be invited back to the legion for a gathering after the ceremony.
September 11 is an important day, especially this year as it marks the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
