America’s Civil War left nearly a million casualties and a national wound that would take generations to heal. Heal it did and the process began almost immediately. 
While a small hamlet in Greater Western New York was busy forgetting its recent past, another of our villages became the first to keep from forgetting. If we travel east of Town Line on Route 20, we pass through the heart of our region. Just past Geneva and before we reach Seneca Falls, we come to the not-so-small Village of Waterloo in Seneca County. Waterloo’s a big village, reaching into three towns – Waterloo, Seneca and Fayette.
When the Union veterans began returning to Waterloo, a forty-five year old druggist took note. He noted how the residents greeted all those who returned with honors and celebrations. What bothered him, though, were the ones that didn’t return. Who would honor their memories? Perhaps he was compelled by his own personal experience. He Continue Reading “A Civil War Memorial”
Remembering Armistice Day and Celebrating Veterans Day
Perhaps the fact that America learned this lesson a half century earlier in its own Civil War explains our country’s late entry into “The World War” (yet another name used to define the conflict that raged from 1914-1918. Indeed, it was William Tecumseh Sherman who Continue Reading “Remembering Armistice Day and Celebrating Veterans Day”