Now a holiday tradition, the event was the brain child of Morrill Worcester of Harrington, Maine, whose visit to Arlington as a 12-year-old paper boy led him in 1992 to direct the excess wreaths from his holiday businesses to some of the less visited graves there.
It’s coming to Springfield this year largely by word-of-mouth and the determined work of Springfield’s Betsy Van Hoose, whose husband, Tim, is a veteran, whose oldest son served as a U.S. Cavalry scout and youngest son is in the U.S. Navy.
While returning together from a Wreathes Across America ceremony in Greenville, Ohio, last year, “My husband was just wondering why we couldn’t have the support for something like that here,” Betsy Van Hoose said.
He was speaking to the person most likely and qualified to make that happen.
Last year, and for the two previous years, she had helped her friend and former co-worker, Debbie Nissonger, grow the Wreaths Across America observance at Greenville Union Cemetery from 200 wreaths to 600 to an expected 1,200 this year, as research turned up the locations of more veterans’ graves.
“I’m going to miss her this year,” said Nissonger, a member of Daughters of the American Revolution whose regard for veterans goes back to Virginian George Ward, who fought in that war. “She would come early and help us get all the groundwork done – setting up things, getting things ready before the volunteers showed up. Betsy’s been involved since the get-go with us.”
Nevertheless, “When I took on the project at first, I really was nervous,” said Van Hoose, an office coordinator at Springfield Regional Medical Center. “I prayed and prayed about it and got comfort from God.” She also got support from Springfield’s First Christian Church, where she serves on a Military Committee whose members made three quilts in the past year to honor veterans in the congregation who have passed away.
“Someone in the military group suggested (approaching) St. Bernard’s (Cemetery),” Van Hoose said.
To cemetery superintendent Wayne Woodruff, it was a godsend.
“I took on this cemetery going on eight years ago, and since our first year out here, I thought our soldiers mound looked terrible,” he said. “Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to do something with it and I just haven’t had the resources.”
From the moment Van Hoose arrived, said Woodruff’s wife, Trusie, who also helps the cemetery go, “he was amazing. She just ran with it.”
On a hot day in May, she also “walked this whole cemetery by herself and identified every soldier she could,” Trusie Woodruff added. Because no such survey ever had been undertaken, “It was a blessing for us.”
Then, under the leadership of Theresa Silvers, who chairs the Military Committee at First Christian, church members came up with a solution for the collection of oversize rocks and Pampas grass that constituted the Veterans Mound Mr. Woodruff had long fretted about: They adopted it.
Mrs. Woodruff said she got wind of that in June, and the project was done by the Fourth of July.
“I’ve never seen a group of women move any faster,” she said.
In route, the church bought the flowers, was given topsoil by Lawnmasters, a helping hand from Speedway LLC and a flagpole from the Veterans Administration and Pinnacle Flagpole.
“It wasn’t just one person doing it,” Betsy Van Hoose said.
Others who stepped up were Springfield VFW Posts 1031 and 3660, Speedway LLC, the Clark County Fraternal order of Police, Troy Fish & Game, A.G. Samuelson and Dave’s Truck and Auto Paint.
Ultimately, the effort raised enough money to cover the cost of buying the 611 wreaths for this year’s ceremony and roughly $15 each. A volunteer trucker will deliver the wreaths.
Although everything seems well in hand for the inaugural event at St. Bernard’s Cemetery, there’s still opportunity for people to participate. Those who already have purchased wreaths for a specific veteran can place the wreath on the grave; however, volunteers are invited and needed to lay the hundreds of wreaths bought by larger donors rather than individuals.
Betsy Van Hoose recommends it. Even after the hundreds of times she has placed a wreath, then stepped back and thanked the veteran aloud for his or her service, “I still get choked up. Some of these people, they don’t have family coming any more, and I hope they’re looking down and feel remembered.”
Those interested in participating can go to www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/OH0292 and click on “volunteer.” (Be sure to include the information after the slash, which ensures a connection with the Springfield event.)
Donations still made at the website this year will go to next year’s event.
St. Bernard Cemetery’s Wayne Woodruff, who says “I can’t even begin to express how much I appreciate” what has transpired, has two things on his wish list.
“I’m not pleased” with the way the alignment of the first row of headstones in the Veterans area, he said. “I immediately think of Arlington Cemetery, “where everything’s perfectly lined up.”
Making that happen will take some work. Then there’s what might be called his pet project.
“I have some ladies working on getting me a canon,” Woodruff said. “It’s not a deal-breaker if it’s not a functioning one,” he added, “but a functioning one would be ideal.”
From the time the Woodruffs started at the cemetery, “he’s wanted a canon out here,” his wife said.
“I think it’s part of the boy in him.”
Then again, it was a 12-year-old paper boy’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery that gave Wreaths Across America its start.
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