‘I think we carry our dead around with us’

Ever since Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery opened in 1999, volunteers from the Wilmington Garden Club plant flowers at its entrance shortly before Memorial Day.

Flowers include red and white geraniums, blue lobelia, white cornflowers and white phlox, along with two large pots of begonias, longtime member Mary Chaney said.

“We had to find things the deer don’t like,” she said.

The Wilmington Garden Club also maintains Claire’s Corner Park in Wilmington and the Riley Fox Memorial Garden in Wilmington – along with many other projects.

But Abraham Lincoln is close to Chaney’s heart. Her father-in-law, James Chaney, who worked for the Elwood side of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant when it exploded (“He was one of the lucky ones,” she said), is buried there.

So is Mary’s husband, Ronald Chaney.

Only about six volunteers planted flowers before Memorial Day this year. But that’s understandable.

“Our club is 85 years old,” Mary Chaney said. “So we have seven members out of the 16 that are 80 or over. I’m 75, and I’m one of the younger ones.”

Memorial Day, celebrated this year on May 30, originally was known as Decoration Day, a day to honor people who died in military service. Memorial Day became an official federal holiday in 1971.

“Across our nation on Memorial Day, we gather to honor and remember those who gave what Abraham Lincoln called the ‘last full measure of devotion’ in the fight for our liberty; we honor America’s finest men and women who gave their lives in defense of a nation, in defense of its people,” Ken Buck, superintendent of the Grundy County Veterans Assistance Commission, said in a news release.

But many area residents also honor their deceased loved ones on Memorial Day, regardless of whether they served in the military. Churches in the Diocese of Joliet often hold memorial Masses in their cemeteries on Memorial Day.

And some residents honor veterans for service beyond the military.

Military and musical service

Joe Zolecki, principal trumpet for the Joliet American Legion Band, said the band honors three veterans at two cemeteries on Memorial Day before playing at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery’s program at 11 a.m.

The concept of starting a Joliet American Legion Band originated during World War II, when two men from Joliet, Archie McAllister Jr. and Bill Austin, were serving together on a small island in the South Pacific, said Tom Drake, then-musical director and conductor of the band.

As a 2014 Herald-News story told it, their goal was to – after the war – form a band of Joliet musicians, led by Archie McAllister Sr., McAllister’s father and director of the Joliet Township High School band.

Unfortunately, the senior McAllister died before the band’s inception, so Archie Jr. formed it as a memorial to his father and served as its first director, Drake said.

On Memorial Day, the American Legion Band meets about 8 a.m. at the bottom of the hill leading to Elmhurst Cemetery on Washington Street in Joliet, then marches up the hill to pay its respects and play taps for both McAllisters, Zolecki said.

Members then head to Mount Olivet Cemetery on Cass Street for a similar service at 9:15 a.m. before going to Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.

Zolecki said he feels the band honors more than people’s service to the U.S. It honors their service to the community through music after they came home.

“It helps all of us remember the contribution they made and just to recognize them as the founders of this band and our duty to continue the tradition of the Joliet music program,” Zolecki said. “It’s just a nice way to pay tribute to them.”

‘Everyone is important in some way or another in this world’

On Memorial Day, Marcia Marzec of Joliet attends Mass at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Joliet and then visits three cemeteries to plant flowers.

One is Mount Olivet, where two “baby aunts” – Margaret and Rita – are buried in the same plot, Marzec said.

Margaret died at age 4 in 1912 and was being memorialized in the family house while Marzec’s grandmother was upstairs giving birth to Marzec’s father, Thomas Smith, the 10th of 11 children and the seventh son, Marzec said. Rita was a few months old when she died, when Thomas was 3, Marzec said.

As a child, Marzec would go to the cemetery with her father and plant flowers and pay respects to his parents. Marzec keeps the tradition and brings her “baby aunts” pink flowers, she said.

Marzec also goes to Resurrection Cemetery in Romeoville, where her father and mother, Lucille Smith, are buried, and then to Holy Cross Cemetery in Joliet, where her maternal grandparents are buried.

Marzec’s husband, Jim Marzec, grew up in Chicago, so his relatives are not buried locally, she said.

Marcia Marzec said her father’s family is Irish, and they fled to Northern England to escape the famine. She said her father had twin brothers buried there, too, adding that “reverence of the dead” is really important to folks of Irish heritage.

“I think we carry our dead around with us,” Marcia Marzec said. “It’s a matter of the communion of saints. We pray for their graves at grace; they’re at the table with us. I think it’s just really a precious thing not to let them go.”

But it’s not just the Irish that honor their dead on Memorial Day, Marcia Marzec said.

“At Mount Olivet, people are just swarming all over, plantings flowers and doing all sorts of things to make the graves look nice,” Marcia Marzec said.

Sandy Meinke of Romeoville attends Memorial Day services at Resurrection Cemetery in Romeoville. But she comes out on other occasions, too.

“I have a lot of friends and family buried here,” Meinke said.

Meinke’s father, Richard Prokopec, was a Korean War veteran who died in 1973 when Meinke was 15. He is buried there, as is Meinke’s sister’s baby, who was born two months early in 1991.

For years, Meinke and her mother, Mary Jean Prokopec, visited the cemetery together. But Mary Jean died in 2002, so now Meinke carries on the tradition.

“I was just brought up that way, from the time I was a small child,” Meinke said.

Jackie Kocjan Zite of Crest Hill has a similar experience. Her father, Edward “Pat” Kocjan Sr., died in 1972, and both her grandfathers also died young.

So Zite often visited the cemetery at St. Mary Nativity in Crest Hill with her grandmother, Catherine Plese (now also buried there), and her mother, Lucille Kocjan, to visit Lucille’s father. Lucille died four years ago and is buried at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Joliet with Pat.

Zite goes to Woodlawn on Memorial Day and often to St. Mary Nativity Cemetery to pray for her grandparents. Zite said her brother and sister-in-law, Ed and Carol Kocjan, also tend the graves of the family’s relatives there.

She and her husband, Herb, also care for the Kocjan graves at St. Joseph Cemetery in Joliet. Zite plants flowers such as daylilies and hostas.

“My husband cleans up around the graves for the people who don’t have anyone to take care them,” Zite said.

Holly Veronda of Carbon Hill said she and her family stop at Woodlawn Memorial Park on Memorial Day, where her grandparents Benedict and Catherine Bazic are buried.

Benedict, an Army veteran, served in Germany, but Veronda said it’s important to honor Catherine, too.

“Because she raised me from the time I was 7 years old,” said Veronda, who named her daughter after her grandmother. “My mom was a single mom and went to work at the Will County courthouse. So it was just Grandma and me.”

Veronda said she and her children bring flowers and share memories.

“We make sure the grandkids know who they are,” Veronda said, “so that when we’re gone they can continue the traditions.”

Veronda said she firmly believes Memorial Day shouldn’t be limited to veterans.

“Because everyone is important in some way or another in this world,” Veronda said.