Local community memorial honors servicemen and women after WWI and WWII

Perhaps you’ve seen them—the colorful, soldier statue in Eastport, and the eagle spreading its wings outside an office building in East Moriches; the stone monument in Center Moriches outside the Main Street school. 

Following the end of World War I and after the influenza pandemic of 1918, thousands of memorials like these were erected in cities, towns, and villages to commemorate the sacrifice of the more than 4 million men and women who had served, and the more than 116,000 who had died. In small towns like ours, names were collected in books, recording dates of enlistment, branch of service, rank and discharge or death information to be included on each officially commissioned visual statement.

It was an effort undertaken by communities and civic leaders to honor each soldier’s service and preserve their memory.  Most memorials were conceived, created, and dedicated in official ceremonies between 1920 and 1930. The practice resumed during and after the Second World War service ended in 1946.

But as with many things, the passage of time has taken its toll.  Many have been forgotten, or, worse, allowed to deteriorate.  To right this wrong, bloggers and ordinary people have dedicated their energies to help record their location, physical description, and transcribe the names. We can find them on sites like The Honor Roll Project.

By photographing and transcribing these details, The Honor Roll Project makes names available for search engines useful to historians, relatives, and students on the internet. It creates a map of locations across the country and shows how each community effort interpreted the commemorative statement.

Interested volunteers who locate a memorial not yet included on the site can photograph it, transcribe the names, and send these to vrojomit@gmail.com so it will be posted on her blog and add it to the project registry.

Jane Wilcox, one of those who took an interest in the project, created an annotated page for the Center Moriches Honor Roll that includes the names of over 290 residents, including members of her family, who served between 1917 and 1946.

Wilcox pointed out that as a farming community, this area qualified for exemptions to the oldest sons of farm families so they could help maintain the nation’s food supply. Manorville historian Pearo observed the absence of names from WWI on the Manorville memorial, and suggests the prevalence of farms in the area kept men at home during the first conflict.

The original WWII Manorville Honor Roll was a wooden billboard. As described by Dorothy K. Magnani and Sandy Rafuse in “The History of Manorville,” it was “designed, constructed, hand painted and donated to the town of Manorville by Jack Maryon and Jerome Hans.”

Each name was carefully painted by hand; as others volunteered or were drafted, their names were added to the list. Two men, Clarence Hettrick and Norman Freese, were killed in the war; a third, John Mihalik, returned at war’s end after imprisonment in Russia.

The original honor roll deteriorated over time and was replaced by Maryon and Hans, who donated the smaller version housed in an oak and glass case to the Manorville Fire Department.

It hangs now in the front entrance to the Historical Society’s headquarters at West School on North Street.