A ceremony is set this week for Veterans Day in Neahwa Park. It will be amid a construction scene for the new Memorial Walkway, but nevertheless historic, as it was 50 years ago this November that Neahwa Park became the new site of Veterans Day events in Oneonta. It was to dedicate the familiar obelisk monument to represent all veterans' organizations.
Oneonta's War Memorial Committee, headed by Sixth Ward Alderman John W. Kreger, came to a decision on July 5, 1959, to obtain a modern type granite monument from the Dauley & Wright granite works, then located on Broad Street. A sum of $2,500 had been raised during the year through public subscription for the 13-foot-4-inches tall and 3-foot-wide monument. The insignias of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force would be on the sides.
Before that year, Veterans Day ceremonies had traditionally included a parade that began at the armory on Academy Street and ended in the Riverside Cemetery, in back of the First Presbyterian Church on Main Street. The ceremony took place near the Grand Army of The Republic monument in the cemetery.
Serious efforts were made to close area stores, government offices and schools so that as many people as possible could attend the ceremony, which like this year fell on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Bresee's Oneonta Department Store, Markson's Furniture Store and Henderson's Clothing Store announced the day before that their businesses wouldn't open until noon. The five supermarkets, including Loblaw's, A&P, Grand Union, Victory and Acme, as well as all independent grocers, would close from 10 a.m. until noon.
"Oneonta will pause in reverence today to consummate a community achievement after 40 years of seeking," reported The Oneonta Star on Veterans Day.
Congressman Samuel S. Stratton of Schenectady and Supreme Court Justice Joseph P. Molinari were principal speakers for the ceremony. Preceding this was a parade that formed at Elm and Walnut streets, marching west on Main Street and into Neahwa Park through the Neahwa Place entrance. Featured in the parade was the 1st Infantry Marching Unit from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
During the ceremony, wreaths were laid at the monument, and special note was made that there were only four local survivors remaining from the Spanish-American War.
Congressman Stratton declared that "freedom is not free." He urged the nearly 500 on hand to continue the battle against evil, bigotry and communism _ "threats to the American way of life." Of the new monument, Stratton said, "This is a symbol of the devotion and dedication to freedom expressed by Oneontans who sacrificed their futures to America's wars."
Justice Molinari urged the audience to "dedicate their every thought and act to the furtherance of everlasting peace among nations." Molinari recalled that as a boy, how friends congregated at the railroad station to bid farewell to those who went off to World War I, and how 23 men and one woman never returned. Then less than 25 years later, people assembled at the station again, and 60 men never returned.
Molinari added, "And now that we are living in a cold period "¦ the atomic age "¦ the era of rockets with fear in our hearts that we may once again be called upon to sacrifice our loved ones "¦ we well realize that if this occurred, our losses and sacrifices of the past would be mere pittance compared with the tremendous annihilation of humanity which would result from such a conflict."
A group of Boy Scouts unveiled the new monument. The Hartwick College Chorus directed by Frederic Fay Swift sang a selection. A luncheon at the American Legion Home followed the dedication.
The dedication completed planning that had been going on for nearly 40 years. Shortly after World War I, the community sought to establish an enduring war memorial, which took the form of small plaques wired to seedling trees near the present Scatchard Memorial Fountain near the Neahwa Place entrance to the park. The plaques were gone in a few months, and soon the memorial aspect of the trees was lost.
Twice after World War II, attempts were made on a community basis to raise a suitable memorial, but neither were successful.
This weekend, if one thinks public war protests began in the 1960s and '70s, they would be incorrect.
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City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.
