PORT TOWNSEND — Members of American Legion Post 26 were joined by hundreds of community members Monday as they honored their departed comrades on Memorial Day.
Members of the Marvin G. Shields Memorial Post 26 of the American Legion annually visit three cemeteries in Port Townsend to honor veterans.
“We do this annually,” said Andy Okinczyc, Post 26 commander. “Basically we’re just honoring our veterans.”
The group started at the Fort Worden Military Cemetery on Monday morning. The cemetery was established in 1898 and holds graves of soldiers and their family members, stretching from the Spanish American War to the Vietnam War.
The cemetery is a popular place for the local community to pay respects on Memorial Day. The Holms family from Port Ludlow — mother Helen and children Phoenix and Oracle — were also at the military cemetery, placing flags in front of some of the headstones and re-situating flowers that had been blown off the headstones overnight.
Members of Post 26 then went on to perform the same ceremony among the graves at Laurel Grove Cemetery, which holds the graves of veterans who fought in the Civil War, and then also at St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery. All three were decorated with flags, placed at the base of veterans’ headstones.
The Legion later hosted the PT Summer Band at the Legion Hall in downtown Port Townsend. The band played patriotic songs and provided music during the Legion’s Memorial Day program.
“We have seats for 250 people and we’re always at standing room only every year,” Okinczyc said. “Everybody’s got a veteran in their family.”
Part of the Memorial Day program was the giving of quilts to local veterans, thanks to the local branch of the Quilts of Valor Foundation.
According to Kathy Bates, founder of the local Quilts of Valor branch, the program has been around for roughly 12 years. Bates, a veteran who served in the Navy from 1971 to 1992, founded the local branch in 2010.
Quilts of Valor was started by Katherine Roberts, who now lives in Anacortes, who while living in Connecticut made a quilt for her son when he returned from his second tour in Iraq.
Roberts’ son asked for a quilt for a fellow soldier and “she soon found herself with a group of friends making quilts for soldiers,” Bates said.
The quilts were sent overseas to comfort wounded soldiers, then they expanded and brought the quilts to local VA hospitals. Now quilts are sew by people from across the U.S., Canada, UK and New Zealand for any military service member or veteran.
According to Bates, the foundation has made 160,000 quilts in the last year and 16 of those were handed out to local veterans Monday at the Port Townsend Legion Hall.
“This is a civilian thank you, similar to a medal, for your service,” Bates said during Monday’s program. “We hope that you use these quilts. They’re made to be used and they’re just the right size to curl up and watch TV with.”
The Memorial Day service ended with a wreath laying and gun salute on the City Dock in downtown Port Townsend to honor all those who lost their lives at sea. The Legion then invited the community in for a potluck lunch, an annual tradition.
“The Legion has been doing this since the beginning of time,” Okinczyc said. “The American Legion is getting close to 100 years old and the Port Townsend post was founded in 1941.”
The Legion also went to Chimacum on Monday afternoon to lay wreaths at Greenwood Cemetery.
Elsewhere in Jefferson County on Monday, a Memorial Day ceremony was held at Gardiner Community Cemetery.
In Clallam County, ceremonies were held at Mount Angeles Memorial Park, Sequim View, Jamestown, Blue Mountain and Forks cemeteries.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Cydney McFarland can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 55052, or at cmcfarland@peninsuladailynews.com.
Don Shore was awarded a quilt from the local branch of Quilts for Valor at the American Legion hall in Port Townsend on Monday. (Cydney McFarland/Peninsula Daily News)
