A Day Of Rememberance

Written by Cyndy and Jim Wudarczyk, this article first appeared in the March, 1993 issue of HISTORICAL HAPPENINGS. It was written with information provided by Bill Reynolds of the Jene Magers Post.

In a few short months the sun will rise on a day that's very important in our history as a nation. It's a day when we honor our deceased veterans, Memorial Day.

Here, in Lawrenceville, residents will prepare themselves for the day by congregating on the streets for the annual Memorial Day Parade. Vendors will be selling balloons and other wares and spectators will appear an hour before the parade comes by to visit with neighbors and frieends. Children will wait pensively to hear the bands and see the soldiers.

Although our local Memorial Day Parade has lost many of its participants through the years, those who continue to take part in it are to be commended for a tradition that goes back more than 100 years.

General John A. Logan, commander-in-cheif of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.), issued the original order designating Memorial Day, May 30, 1868, as a day to decorate the graves of those who died defending their country during the Civil War. This day has been observed every year since then.

The original order stated that observance of Memorial Day "will be kept from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades."

For many years in the early history of the parade, the chief organizers and principal participants were the members of the vaious G.A.R. posts. Membership in the Grand Army of the Republic was contingent upon having served in the Civil War. In Lawrnceville, the Colonel O. H. Rippey Post 41 of the G.A.R. was located at 43rd and Butler Streets. Other G.A.R. posts near Lawrenceville were the General Alexacer Hays Post 3 in Oalkand, General George A. Custer Post 38 in Etna, Abe Patterson Post 88 in Allegheny (later the North Side), McPherson Post 117 in East Liberty, Lieutenant James M. Lysle Post 128 in Allegheny, Colonel J. W. Patterson Post 151 on the South Side, Colonel James C. Hall Post 157 in Oakland, Colonel John B. Clark post 16 in Allegheny, Colonel Robert G. Shaw Post 206 in Oakland, General James A. Garfield Post 215 in the East End, Colonel James H. Childs Post 230 in the Hill District, Lieutenant E. R. Geary Post 236 on the South Side and the Duquesne Post 259 of Oakland. A number of suburban communities also had G. A. R. posts.

While the "Decoration" or Memorial Day services always passed peacefully in Pittsburgh, some cities were not so fortunate. The PITTSBURGH PRESS of May 31, 1897, reported an incident in Naughatur, Virginia: "A Confederate flag was unfurled to the breeze from a house top yesterday near where graves of Union soldiers were being decorated. The flag was torn donw and for a time it looked as though bloodshed would result."

Newspaper accounts from 1906 indicate that the parades would form at Fifth Avenue to Liberty Avenue to Fifth and Penn Avenues. In additon to the G. A. R. marchers, participants included Veterans of Foreign Service, Spanish War Veterans, Sons of the Union Veterans and the Ladies of the G. A. R. upon arriving a t Fifth and Penn, the column boarded trolley cars to Butler and 43rd Streets, where they were joined by G. A. R. Post 41. From there the procession moved promptly to the soldiers plot at Allegheny Cemetery. An account in the Pittsburgh Press read,

"On arrival at the plot, colorbearers will mass the flags around the monumemnt and dip the colors during the firing of the salute. Minute guns will be fired by Battery B during the parade from Forty-third Street, and a national salute at 12 o'clock noon. Post 41 firing squad will fire the salute at the Soldiers' plot in Allegheny Cemetery and he close of the formal placing of flowers."

At both Lawrenceville cemeteries, the solemn ceremonies include a dirge by the Knight of Pythias Band, the singing of hymns, reading of orders, the reading of the Gettysburg Address, the prayer and bendiction was rendered by Reverend L. McGuire, while at Saint Mary's the religious observance was given by Father Phillip Callery.

Upon conclusion of the service, the column marched to Keane's auditorium on 44th Street where a luncheon was held by the Colonel Reippey Circle, Number 21, of the Ladies of the G.A.R.

The headlines of the PITTSBURGH PRESS of May 31, 1914, read "Father McKeever Marks Address at St. Mary's Cemetery." Reverend Edward M. McKeever, LL.D. was pastor of Saint John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church and a community activist. Father McKeever was one the earliest historians of Lawrenceville, having addressed the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania on the subject of "Earlier Lawrenceville." His work was later published in 1922 in the WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL MAGAZINE.

In 1914 one find that Post 41 of the G. A. R. was still active in the parade and solemn ceremonies were performed at both Allegheny and Saint Mary's Cemetery.

A newspaper account of May 30, 1915, read:

"The monument erected in St. Mary's cemetery in memory of Francis P. DeLowery, the young Pittsburgher who lost his life during the American occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico, will be unveiled this afternoon with fitting ceremonies. Twelve or fourteen uniformed companies led by the Eighteenth Regiment, N. G. P. under command of Colonel J. H. Bigger, will form in procession at 2 p.m. at Friendship and Atlantic Avenues and march to the cemeteries. Addresses will be made by Rev. Father C. J. Coyne, Mayor Armstrong and S. G. Porter. A sister of the dead hero, Miss Gertrude DeLowrey, will unveil the monument, and George Reilly, who served with young DeLowrey, will sound taps.

Although the parade is not as big as those in days past, those who march and those who watch continue a long tradition as a day of remembrance for those who made the untimate sacrifice for their country.