Restored pg 1 5-10-12
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Getting Ready
Barney Seney pressure washes the Grove Street Soldiers' Monument in Putnam as Don Steinbrick looks on from the ground. The monument will be re-dedicated on its 100th anniversary, Memorial Day. Linda Lemmon photo.
Two years ago, Don Steinbrick was distributing flags for veterans at the Grove Street Cemetery in Putnam when he came across a half-buried flag marker with the inscription “WRC 1888.” Curiosity took over and subsequent research, planning and preparation brought about the idea to restore and rededicate the Grove Street Soldiers’ Monument this Memorial Day, 100 years after its erection.
The marker discovery by Steinbrick couldn’t have been more timely. One hundred years ago, the Woman’s Relief Corps Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, had raised the funds to erect the monument on May 30, 1912. It honors those locals who served in the Civil War, more than 50 years after the war ended.
Steinbrick, who grew up in the neighborhood of Grove Street, gathered some old childhood friends and launched preliminary plans to refurbish the bronze figure and granite pedestal. The project turned into a local Civil War history lesson for the group and led to some unexpected discoveries.
Although hundreds turned out on that rainy dedication day in 1912, Steinbrick and his committee are expecting a much smaller crowd to experience this year’s rededication on May 28, just before to the annual Putnam Memorial Day parade. The parade steps off each year in the vicinity of the monument.
The brief ceremony will closely follow the original dedication program with a re-presentation of the restored monument to the City of Putnam, reflections of the occasion by John T. McDonald, whose grandfather delivered a similar response as mayor in 1912, and appropriate music from the Civil War period.
The main task of the committee was to replace the stack of cannon balls that had once been part of the memorial but disappeared in the 1940s. And while bowling balls will serve as replacement ammunition, the structure is being designed to hopefully eliminate the fate of the originals, which some old timers remember as being rolled down the neighboring streets.
It is also believed that the cannon balls were part of the scrap metal collection efforts of 1942 to aid the war effort. In the process of preparing to lay a slab for the new cannonball structure, the original slab was discovered about 10 inches below the surface, Steinbrick said.
A dead tree was also removed from the triangular park and will be replaced by two flowering trees. The bronze figure and granite pedestal were cleaned and flag-holding markers will grace each of the four corners. Souvenir programs will include the names of all those who served and the places where they were buried.