Dayhoff: Carroll honors Memorial Day

Memorial Day is on Monday. One-hundred and fifty seven years ago, the tradition of setting aside a day to honor our country’s fallen heroes began with Gen. John A. Logan’s General Order No. 11 on May 5, 1868 to adorn the graves of Union soldiers with flowers.

Since then, Carroll County has understood Memorial Day as a solemn day when we gather as a community at the historic Westminster Cemetery to express our profound gratitude for the acts of brave patriots who gave their lives.

Once again, on this Memorial Day, the normal hustle and bustle of downtown Westminster will pause along with the nation to remember our country’s fallen veterans and specifically the many Carroll County military personnel who lost their lives in defense of our country.

As 10 a.m. approaches, the historic Westminster Main Street will have a surreal look to it as thousands of people from all walks of life will line the otherwise busy downtown thoroughfare waiting in anticipation for the annual Memorial Day parade.

There will be no traffic, and no cars parked on the street as families chat with neighbors and friends with one eye and one ear focused to the west end of town moments before the parade.

Then it will happen. At precisely 9:50 a.m. the Carroll Post #31 “American Legion Riders,” led by American Legion member Larry Solarczyk, will roll out with their motorcycles, eastbound along the parade route and hand out American flags along the route.

As local church bells begin to ring, the parade will step off with the sounds of the Westminster Municipal Band at 10 a.m. The band has led the parade since the early 1900s.

The Westminster Memorial Day ceremonies, which are reported to be the longest continuous observation of Memorial Day in the nation, have been a tradition in Westminster since the first parade was organized by Mary Bostwick Shellman in the late 1860s.

Shellman continued organizing the annual parade and ceremonies until approximately 1932. It was then that the American Legion Carroll Post 31 took over and has been the driving force for the Memorial Day ceremonies ever since.

According to oral tradition in my family, the Wrights and Warfields, that my grandfather, Wm. Earl Wright, a World War I military police cavalry veteran and member of Post 31, was one of the individuals that approached Shellman with the thought of turning over the ceremonies to the American Legion. This piece of trivia may explain why I have missed very few Memorial Day ceremonies over the years and have written about the event since the 1960s.

Portions of this discussion have been published before. It  is important we never forget the sacrifice of those who have gone before so that we may enjoy our freedoms and quality of life.

J. Albert Mitten was the first chair the Memorial Day observances for Post 31, according to an interview with the late Charles O. Fisher Sr., along with a letter of his published May 31, 2006 in the Westminster Eagle.

Fisher participated in the ceremonies in various capacities beginning in 1923 until his death on June 22, 2012.

In 2006, Fisher wrote, “I can recall first participating in the parade in 1923, when I was in the first grade at St. John’s parochial school. … Mitten was succeeded by F. Kale Mathias in 1948, by Paul Smith in 1985, by Harry Emigh in 1994.”

Danny Bohn was the chair of the Memorial Day observances for many years. Sadly, Bohn died at age 76 on May 16, while holding the hand of his wife Susan. Bohn served as a combat medic in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968 and saw his fair share of military personnel die for our country.

The current chair of the Memorial Day observances is Adrian Gamboa, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. Gamboa served in Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as a number of “hot areas across the globe,” according to a June 16, 2016, “Veterans Oral History” interview with Carroll History Project on the Community Media Center.

After the parade, which continues for over an hour, hundreds of citizens will gather in the historic Westminster Cemetery for the traditional Memorial Day services.

Carroll County State’s Attorney Haven Shoemaker is this year’s keynote speaker at the ceremonies at the Westminster Cemetery. Shoemaker served in the Army National Guard. He moved to Hampstead in 1994 and opened a small law practice in town. After serving on the Hampstead Town Council, Shoemaker served as the Hampstead mayor from 2003-2010, Carroll County commissioner from 2010-14, and as a Maryland state delegate from the 5th District, from 2015-2022. He was sworn in as the 23rd Carroll County state’s attorney on Jan. 3, 2023.

After Memorial Day, some of us will look forward to summer vacations, leisurely cookouts or fun at the beach. It is only fitting, however, that on Memorial Day we pause to remember, as well as honor those who gave so much so that we can continue to live in a land that offers us the unalienable right to live free and cherish liberty in the pursuit of happiness.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. His Time Flies column appears every Sunday. Email him at kevindayhoff@gmail.com.