Volunteers honor vets with muscle, sweat, tears and roses
Story by Paul South
Photos by Carol Pappas
Submitted Photos
At the blighted Blue Star Memorial marker on Veterans Memorial Parkway, weeds were winning the war just a few months ago.
Flowers wilted in dry ground. Shrubs browned. In Dana Ellison’s blunt assessment, the landmark leading to the Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home that was supposed to honor our military, “looked like crap.”
In short order, a small detachment of volunteers – Ellison, Ellen Tanner, Cayce Johnson and Josh Franklin, along with reinforcements from St. Clair County, Pell City and Wattsville Water – went on the offensive in the oppressive late May heat to restore the marker’s site to its former glory.
After five hours of volunteer sweat that just beat a major storm, the blight and weeds were in retreat.
The flower bed was condensed, pulled up and edgers relaid. Shrubs and flowers – red roses and white gardenias – were planted. A blue star also adorns the hallowed ground. The low maintenance shrubbery came from Hazelwood’s Nursery in Pell City, and a red, white and blue bow now festoons the marker.
Small versions of the Stars and Stripes stood at attention, each flag encircling the marker like a patriotic clock.
“If you were to look at the monument from an aerial shot, we laid out the gardenias on either side where it almost designs a star counting the post in the middle,” Ellison said. And to be clear, not one penny of public money was used for the project.
The volunteers provided the materials.
Wattsville supplied water, and Pell City provided a hydrant to slake the thirst of the ground, flowers and shrubs.
Until the waterline was placed, Pell City’s fire department stepped in to keep the garden watered.
Ellison and her comrades took the monument to heart. She fertilizes, prunes, weeds and waters the site several times a week.
“I have made that my lifelong project, goal, passion to keep that veterans’ garden looking as good as it can.”
The marker’s restored message to motorists?
“Respect,” Tanner said.
Respect for veterans and their families.
Respect for country.
Respect for God’s ground.
The marker, placed in 2013 as a Leadership St. Clair project, hadn’t always been honored.
“All of the blocks had shifted,” Johnson said. “The roses were dead. It was in poor shape. It was not very honorable to the men and women who served our great nation to keep us free.
“I think that as a community and as a citizen of this town and as citizens, we can do better in honoring them,” Johnson says. “And especially since that’s the main road leading down to the veterans’ home, that’s important that they know that a community appreciates them and supports them.”
Tanner spearheaded the original Blue Star project when she was part of the 2013 Class of Leadership St. Clair. Attendees learn about the county and craft a project that leaves a positive legacy. Working with the National Garden Clubs, the class made it happen.
But neglect and time ravaged the area until three women and one man stepped into the breach. The reason was simple, Tanner says. “You cannot honor our veterans enough,” she says. “They are such a precious treasure to this country, and we need to hold them up and honor them as much as we can.”
The Blue Star Highway: A Brief History
Blue Star Highways in the United States pay tribute to all men and women – past, present and future – serving in American armed forces. The National Council of State Garden Clubs, now known as National Garden Clubs, Inc., created the Blue Star program near the end of World War II. Flowers have always been at the heart of the effort. In 1944, the New Jersey Council of Garden Clubs planted 8,000 Dogwood trees to honor those serving in that war.
The markers are only placed on dedicated highways.
The tears of a military wife, mother and daughter-in-law
Johnson is deeply invested in the military. One son is in the Air Force – Airman 1st Class Parker Holmes. Another son, Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Holmes, is at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Her husband, Billy, served as a Marine sergeant, and her father-in-law, Don, is a Vietnam vet.
She understands the sacrifice of vets and their families. And tears readily flow when she thinks of the monument as it was before the restoration effort and as she thinks of combat vets who sometimes struggle to return to civilian life. Until the May restoration, like those soldiers, sailors and marines, the marker was forgotten.
“As veterans, they come home, and they have to assimilate back into society and a lot of times, they’re not able to, because of the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve been through,” Johnson said. “When I look at (the monument), first and foremost it reminded me of our military men and women who come back home, and they’re just forgotten. They don’t feel they have a purpose.”
Before the restoration, the wilted flowers, the tall grass and scattered stones cut deep. “When I looked at that, and I saw those roses and that blue star there and all of the grass, it just made me feel like we just forget them.”
And after the project?
“Once it was all pretty with the roses and the flowers, and St. Clair County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon came with our pine straw to put down, it was just beautiful,” Johnson says. “It’s rejuvenated.”
In a larger sense, the teamwork of the small cadre of volunteers, the public and private sectors, offers a glimmer of optimism and hope for the country during a polarized period.
She thinks of her best friend of three decades, Ellison, who sees Johnson’s serving sons as her nephews. “It does bring back a little bit of hope for our humanity. There are people who still care, who are still very patriotic and love our country and what it stands for.”
Johnson remembers when her sons were small boys. They’d go to the veterans’ home and fill bird feeders. As in those days, she said, the Blue Star project was “an honor. It’s a very, very small ‘thank you’ for what they’ve done for me,” Johnson says. “I always say I kept (my sons) safe when they were little and defended them. And now it’s an honor that they defend me.”
The county, teamwork and respect
For Ellison, it all comes down to one thing. “It was just teamwork, wanting to do a good thing.”
The project not only says something about the volunteers, but about Pell City and St. Clair County.
“When there’s a need,” Ellison says, “people come together to get a job done … It was just a matter of helping fellow man and wanting to do for and respect those people, men and women who served our country.”
She adds, “It was a matter of respect for them. We just wanted to return that respect any way that we could.”
Tanner agrees.
“People in St. Clair County truly care about veterans. I don’t mean this to be a North-South thing. But in the South, we honor and hold dear our veterans, family, God and country.”
And when locals and visitors pass the Pell City Blue Star Memorial marker – or any of them across the country – Tanner hopes a feeling washes over them of thankfulness, appreciation and honor for veterans in general. “We hope it will stir that feeling of thankfulness for their service.”
