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Taneytown History
Memorial Day – 1946
David Buie
(6/2021) I hope everyone has enjoyed the history of the Taneytown series. For May, I will be taking a break and highlighting the 1946 Taneytown Memorial Day Parade. The parade was considered the largest in the town's history, having had several thousand people in attendance.
Many Carroll County towns are justly proud of their long traditions of Memorial Day observances. The holiday has been observed in at least one of them, Westminster, since shortly after the Civil War. Early observances in the twentieth century were reported in the June 2, 1900, issue of Westminster’s American Sentinel newspaper under the headline "Memorial Day in Carroll:"
"Memorial exercises were held at Winfield and Taneytown, this county, on Wednesday. An account of the day at Winfield will be found in the items from that place, elsewhere published in the Sentinel. To this [Taneytown] account we only desire to add that admirable order prevailed, notwithstanding the great throng in attendance, which was estimated at about six thousand people, and that the speakers on the occasion were much impressed by the intelligence of the vast auditory, all of whom listened with marked attention and interest to the address.
"At Taneytown the demonstration far surpassed any previous memorial occasion. It included a parade in which the old soldiers, Carroll County military company of Frizellburg, school children, Taneytown Fire Company, the Order of Heptasophs, Patriotic Sons of America and Knights of Pythias were in line. The several cemeteries of the town were visited, and the graves of the deceased soldiers decorated with flowers. The military company fired a salute in each cemetery. A meeting was held in the Opera House, at which about seven hundred people were present, and as many more failed to find standing room. Addresses were delivered by Rev. Father Lennan, of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, and Rev. Chas. A. Britt, of Trinity Lutheran Church, Taneytown. The exercises were opened with prayer by Rev. Father Lennan."
Senator Millard E. Tydings addressed the crowd at the May 30, 1938, Taneytown Memorial Day observance held at the Reformed Church [now Grace U.C.C.] Cemetery. Pictured from left to right are (seated) Dr. C. M. Benner, Mrs. Francis T. Elliott, Mrs. Louis Lancaster, Mrs. Millard E. Tydings and Fr. Joseph F. Lane; (standing) Albert Smith, James C. Myers, B. Walter Crapster,
James Salley, Louis Lancaster, and Rose Crabbs.
Throughout the first half of the twentieth-century, Memorial Day parades in Taneytown would come and go–most with little fanfare until the one in 1946. That is still considered to be the largest in the town’s history!
According to the June 1, 1946, Evening Sun of Hanover, PA, the parade formed at 2 p.m. on May 31 at the War Memorial, then located at the very eastern end of Baltimore Street. According to The Sun, "The line of the march was from the monument up Baltimore Street to the cemetery of the Reformed Church [now Grace U.C.C.] where the Memorial exercises were held. In the parade were the following units: State Police, the Marshals on horseback, the mayor and city council of Taneytown, Gold Star Mothers, the pastors of the Taneytown churches, color bearer and color guard, firing squad, the W.F. Myers Band of Westminster, the Taneytown Veterans [members of the Snider-Hesson Post of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars], representatives of Foreign Wars of Westminster, a Naval Unit from the Bainbridge Station, the Taneytown I.O.O.F Band, members of the Troop 348 Boy Scouts of Taneytown and school children.
"At the cemetery, the following program was presented with Merwyn C. Fuss presiding: Selection by the Myers band; invocation by the Rev. Glenn L. Stahl, pastor of the Trinity Lutheran church; welcome address by the presiding officer, in which special welcome was given to the boys who, having served in the respective war areas, have now returned to their homes and to civilian life, with the regret that not all those who went at the call of their country were permitted to return; the singing of "America'' under the direction of Mrs. Wallace Yingling accompted by the Junior I.O.O.F. band; Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address recited by Miss Dorothy Alexander; Memorial address by Brig.-Gen. D. John Markey of Walkersville, Md., calling of the roll of World Wars I and II casualties by Harmon Albaugh, commander of Snider-Hesson Post of the American Legion; citation to Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Fream; and the benediction of Rev. Arthur Garvin, pastor of the United
Brethren church.
"The citation referred to ‘as given to Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Fream, parents of Elwood Fream, who was reported missing after flying over Germany and now officially declared dead by the War Department. The citation included the presentation to Mr. and Mrs. Fream of a Gold Star certificate.’
"General Markey, the speaker of the day, was born in Frederick and has been in army life for more than a generation. He was a member of Company A of the Maryland National Guard and as such was sent to the Mexican border in 1907 when war with Mexico seemed about to take place. He later became Captain of Company A and in time was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and then to Colonel of the First Maryland Regiment. During World War I he was in command of a machine gun regiment and saw service on the battle front. During World War II he was in command of Camp Lee in Virginia, one of the largest recruiting camps in the nation. Since 1918 he has been a member of the National American Battle Monument Commission, which has charge of all national cemeteries on foreign soil of which Commission General Pershing is the head. The list of battle casualties from this community, which was read during the exercises, included the following: From World War I - John
Alexander, Howard Frock, William D. Hess, Raymond L. Hesson, Verle C. Snider and William Fox; from WWII - Paul Copenhaver, Kenneth Crumbacker, Elwood Fream, Richard Hull, Bruce Keeney, Lacey Phillips, Richard Sell, Frank Unger and Arthur Neal.
"The exercises of the day were arranged by a committee of which James Myers was the chairman. The various organizations which cooperated in the arrangements for the day are the American Legion, Chamber of Commerce, the Taneytown Volunteer Fire Company, the Odd Fellows and the Junior Mechanics."
It was estimated that those who came to participate in that 1946 observation numbered several thousand . . . some arriving in automobiles and some even by train. The streets were lined with people and every front porch along the line of march from East to West Baltimore streets was packed. The newspaper reported, "Altogether from the standpoint of the people and the interest shown, this has been one of the best Memorial Day occasions within memory for several years."
David Buie is a Taneytown resident who has a passion for Taneytown
and its place in history.
Read
other history articles by David Buie
Read other articles on Taneytown history
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