PASCACK VALLEY—This week we go back to a past Memorial Day, when the people of Westwood gathered, just as we will on Monday, May 27 in solemn remembrance of those lost. The photos on this page were snapped May 30, 1941.
This was the final Memorial Day before America became involved in World War II. That December, the Japanese would bomb Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. would declare war on Japan. A few days later, Germany and Italy would declare war on America. Many young people from the Pascack Valley would head overseas to join the fight, and some would never return. Indeed, just over the horizon lay great change—both glory and tragedy, both victory and loss.
In spring 1941, however, Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was still known to some of the older folks, conjured up images of the heroes of World War I and even the Civil War. Just as the number of World War II veterans in our midst dwindles by the day (less than 1 percent of the 16.4 million who served are alive today), Pascack Valley residents of the 1930s witnessed the same happen with the men who had served with the 22nd New Jersey Infantry Regiment back in 1862.
At one time, local Memorial Day events had brought out a strong showing from Civil War vets, who were members of a Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) post based in Westwood.
One area newspaper lamented in 1927, “Time was, not so long ago, when long lines of men in blue turned out to march on each recurring Memorial Day, but year by year the lines grew thinner and thinner. The distances that could be covered by the men, who were tireless in the early ’60s of the last century, had to be reduced. This Memorial Day, there will be few of them, and most of them will ride.”
The last remaining member of the local GAR passed away in 1934, but by that time the men of Westwood’s Ralph W. Lester VFW Post had Memorial Day events well in hand. The World War I veterans who made up its membership rolls had plenty of years left to march in parades—they were mostly in their 40s.
The morning featured in these photographs began with memorial services at the grave of the late Dr. Benjamin F. Smith, a Civil War veteran, in the Westwood Cemetery. Smith, who had died in 1931, was well-known in the community. He lived on Jefferson Avenue, where he also had a dental practice.
Volunteers from Westwood’s VFW and American Legion worked together to decorate the graves of veterans and change the flags of all graves and monuments. A short parade began at Broadway and went up Irvington Street, looped around on Kinderkamack Road, and came down Westwood Avenue to the park. The procession included borough officials, police, firefighters, VFW and American Legion members and their auxiliaries, school children, scouts, St. Andrew’s Bugle and Drum Corps, and others.
In the park, everyone gathered around the bandstand for songs and speeches. It was an interfaith event, with an invocation by the reverend from Grace Episcopal Church and benediction by a rabbi from Temple Emanuel, which was based in Westwood at the time.
The VFW hosted its annual dinner afterward, welcoming as guests a number of active military personnel who were home on furlough.