Veterans Park: Final ‘cemetery’ pavers go in
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — About 700 more pavers joined the Veterans Park Court of Honor last week. A small strip remains and when that is filled there were be about 5,000 pavers surrounding the American flag in the park.
A good number of the 700 pavers installed May 7 were the pavers that honored veterans in St. Mary’s Cemetery, according to organizer Robert Challinor. The Veterans Advisory Committee researched and then purchased a paver for every veteran in every cemetery in Putnam. The St. Mary’s pavers, 604 of them, were the last of the cemetery pavers installed. “Because we raised extra money, we were able to do pavers for all the veterans in all the cemeteries,” Challinor said.
Orders for pavers may be made through the town’s VAC. Generally, the pavers are installed in May by the students in the Harvard H. Ellis Tech masonry department. Fourteen or 15 students came to install the pavers.
Department head Elliott Hayden said after the pavers are installed, the students come back to sweep sand into the crevices to “lock” it all together.
Hayden said the winter wasn’t too harsh on the pavers. He said a few on the edges sank a little and they’ve already corrected that.
Challinor said he hopes to have the students come back in the fall install a ramp on the Church side of the white vinyl fence, from the synagogue’s parking lot down into the park. Hayden measured out the pitch a few months ago and Challinor is having a diagram made for presentation to the synagogue for their OK.
Another ramp at the other end, closer to the Quinebaug, will also help those who might need more help getting from the synagogue parking lot to the park.
Looking around the park, Challinor said, At the beginning of the park’s transformation, “It was trench warfare. Now it’s not even the same park.”
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Ellis Tech students and teacher/director Elliott Hayden work on installing the pavers at Veterans Park. Expanded photo array Wed. night on our FB page. More photos on page 4. Linda Lemmon photo.
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