In addition to the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Sons of Veterans, several orders, with their appropriate regalias and banners marched in the procession, escorted and enlivened by the strains of a number of brass bands.H.L. Chapman, describing Decoration Day in Johnstown on May 30, 1889.
The rousing skirl of bagpipes greeted my arrival at Sandyvale Memorial Gardens for the annual Memorial Day Service. Playing a slow Scottish march, the piper led a color guard of red-capped Marine Corps League veterans, followed closely by a second color guardin Civil War Union blue and a group of women dressed in the bonnets, bustles and hoop skirts of the mid-19th century.
Off to my right sat groupings of headstones at rest underneath shady sugar maples. Among stones labeled “Father,” “Mother,” and “Woodsmen of the World” were those honoring veterans of the Mexican Campaign, the Civil War and World War I.
Even as we moved along, however, we could see signs of approaching rain, for the sky had clouded over, and we anxiously watched it, fearing our exercises might be interrupted. Chapman.
Upon my arrival, the sky was indebate. Groups of white and grimy cumulus gathered around a comparatively small patch of blue. Below, the breeze was gentle, unthreatening.
Sandyvale is no longer the placeit was in H.L. Chapman’s day – in part because of what happened on Chapman’s next day, May 31, 1889. That rain that had threatenedDecoration Day ceremonies let loose later and eventually led to The Johnstown Flood that destroyed much of the community and killed more than 2,200 people.
Sandy Vale – as it was known – suffered from that flood and others that followed in 1936 and 1977. Many of its graves were relocated to cemeteries on higher ground. Other gravesites were lost when theirmarkers washed away.
Decoration Days, followed by Memorial Days (after World War II), dwindled at Sandy Vale. During the 1980s and ‘90s the cemetery was nearly abandoned. Nearly, but not totally.
During those desolate days, a handful of men took it upon themselves to occasionally make the 10-acre site presentable, using their own equipment and gasoline to hack down high grass andline headstones along the main path.
Not that Sandy Vale was ever forgotten. It was just that no one knew what to do with it. Withunmarked graves it was an awkward cemetery. But because people remained interred there, the usual development weren’t options weren’t appropriate.
Over the past 15 years or so, renewal efforts have gained synergy. The result is Sandyvale Memorial Gardens and Conservancy – a place where people can remember the past amid natural beauty, honor veterans, walk their dogs, attend a horticulture seminar, buy plants, tend a community vegetable plot or enjoy a wine festival.
And now, every Memorial Day, it is once again a place where veterans and loved ones are honored, and the pastcommemorated,amid familiar pageantry.Quite appropriately this year, Sandyvale officials not only memorialized veterans but gave posthumous awards to the families of three men who cared for this place during its time of neglect.
While leaving, I paused and looked around. Sandyvale’s grassy plain was mowed and groomed; neat rows of trees lined the Stonycreek River; and tall hedgerows defined the gardens. In a central plaza, guarded by a Civil War-era cannon, American and Pennsylvania flags waved proudly from tall poles in the prevailing breeze.
As we rode in the carriage which conveyed the distinguished orator to the Sandy Vale Cemetery, where lay the soldier dead whose graves were to be decorated, all felt exhilarated and elated …Chapman.
Despite all of the changes of the past 128 years, H.L. Chapman would recognize Memorial Day in Sandyvale Memorial Gardens immediately – and feel right at home.
***
Excerpts were from “Memoirs of an Itinerant an Autobiography” by H.L. Chapman.