Saratoga News

Photograph by Lea Taurillo

Emily Kolb of Girl Scout Troop 298 lays a wreath on a veteran's grave at Madronia Cemetery during last year's Memorial Day ceremony.

Ceremony is Saratoga tradition

By Carolyn Leal

In what is described as "a page out of Norman Rockwell," Saratogans will honor their war dead with a Memorial Day ceremony on Monday, May 27.

"Mac" McMillan, a U. S. Air Corps veteran of the Pearl Harbor invasion, will talk about his experience. McMillan, then a 24-year-old radio operator, was stationed at Wheeler Field and asleep at 8 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed the U. S. fleet.

"It's something you don't forget," McMillan said.

McMillan left the service in 1945, returned to college and was hired by IBM as an engineer. He is retired and has lived in Saratoga for 26 years.

The Memorial Day ceremony begins at 9:30 a.m. with presentation of a wreath at the Memorial Arch in Blaney Plaza, next to the Saratoga Fire Station, by Lois Brooks, president of the Saratoga Foothill Club. The American flag will be raised by Commander Bill Gainer, Post 344 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Commander Frank Sarafield, Post 6, AMVETS.

The Saratoga High School Band, under direction of Craig Northrup, will lead the assembly up Oak Street to Madronia Cemetery, where Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts will place laurel wreaths on veterans' graves.

"It's like a page out of Norman Rockwell," said Peggy Corr, a committee member.

Also participating will be El Sereno 4-H Club members and Children of the American Revolution. Pastor Greg Ogden of Saratoga Federated Church will give the invocation. Saratoga Mayor Paul Jacobs will speak and the Saratoga High School Band and Choir will perform, with everyone joining in to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The Memorial Day Service is coordinated by the Saratoga Foothill Club, with Lynn Curtis as chairwoman. The public is urged to attend.

Each year, Memorial Day services are held at Madronia Cemetery. The cemetery, founded in 1854, is the final resting place of some 500 veterans from all American wars since the Civil War.

The Memorial Day service has been an annual community event coordinated by the Saratoga Foothill club since 1922.

The Memorial Arch was built in 1919 to honor Saratoga men who died in World War I.