Officials from the Twentieth Star Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are halfway to their goal of obtaining wreath sponsorships for the upcoming Wreaths America event, which – with the help of several other groups – will see the DAR place a wreath at the grave of every veteran interred at Highland Cemetery of West 7th Street in downtown Hattiesburg.
DAR members Mary Dryden and Hattie Phalen, who serve as co-chairs of the Twentieth Star Chapter, estimate the cemetery is the resting place of approximately 2,100 veterans, including Congressional Medal of Honor winners Jack Lucas and Henry Commisky. So far, the organization has gathered 930 wreaths for the effort.
“There are so many people in Hattiesburg and the surrounding areas – Sumrall, Petal – that have family members or friends buried there, that were veterans,” Dryden said. “We want to make sure that we have one for every veteran, so that really is the pressing thing right now.
“We just realized that if we can have all of the veterans with wreaths, when you ride down 7th Street, that’s going to be something – it will be beautiful. With so many veterans in our community, we wanted to see them honored.”
Hattiesburg’s contribution to the nationwide Wreaths Across America event will take place at 11 a.m. December 16 at Highland Cemetery on West 7th Street in Hattiesburg. Ted Tibbett, chairperson of the Hattiesburg Veterans Committee, will lead the ceremony.
Sponsorship of a wreath costs $17, while corporate sponsorships for 100 wreaths are $1,700. The 16-inch-wide wreaths are made of live balsam, adorned with a red bow.
Sponsorship forms and more information can be found at https://rb.gy/nh4f5. The deadline for sponsoring a wreath is November 1.
Phalen, who herself is a veteran, said she is excited to wrangle up more wreath sponsorships, as many of her family members – including her husband, brother and father – also have served in the military.
“Veterans are really close to my heart, so when this came up, I was really excited to be able to do something like this,” she said. “I’ve never been able to lay a wreath on my dad’s grave, because his cemetery doesn’t have this program, so at least this way I can honor him with a wreath.
“But there’s still a long way to go, so we really need some more sponsorships.”
The DAR members are being aided in their mission by the City of Hattiesburg, the Forrest County Board of Supervisors, the Petal Area Chamber of Commerce, veterans’ organizations, businesses, a family foundation and several community members. Author Dale Beasley also is donating the profits from his book “We Will Not be Home by Christmas” to Wreaths Across America, and has designated Highland Cemetery as the recipient location.
In addition, U.S. Marine veterans Mary Draughn and Lynn Franklin are helping with preparations for the event, and along with their husbands, will unload the wreaths when they are delivered for the ceremony. In particular, Draughn and Franklin are working to map Highland Cemetery to determine precisely where its veterans are buried.
“It’s not like a typical veterans’ cemetery, where everybody there is a veteran, so you know exactly where to place (the wreaths),” Draughn said. “We’re hoping to go through and mark them with painters’ tape or something (similar).
“That way we’ll know how many veterans’ graves there are in each section, so we’ll have a better idea of how many wreaths to have set up in that area. I’m hoping to wait for it to cool off a little bit … and we’re hoping by the end of this month to get started on it.”
Some other notable veterans who are buried at the cemetery are the uncle of former Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, as well as Dryden’s grandfather Ed Currie and stepfather Harry Hickman Jr. Current Mayor Toby Barker also has military ties, as he named his son after his grandfather, who was a veteran.
Wreaths Across America coordinates wreath-laying ceremonies at more than 37,000 locations across the United States. As a national event, it has its origins in 1992, when the staff of Worcester Wreath in Harrington, Maine, found themselves with a surplus of wreaths nearing the end of the holiday season. With the aid of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, arrangements were made for the wreaths to be placed at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., in one of the older sections of the cemetery that had been receiving fewer visitors with each passing year.
By 2008, more than 100,000 wreaths were placed on veterans’ graves with the help of more than 600,000 volunteers. That year, Congress established Wreaths Across America day; the laying of more than 2.7 million wreaths now takes place on the second Saturday of each December.
“Being a veteran and knowing the sacrifices that our brothers and sisters have made, it’s important to remember where we’ve come from, and honor those sacrifices,” Draughn said. “That’s what Wreaths Across America is: to remember the past, honor the present and teach the future. So by doing this, we’re remembering the ones that have gone before us, we’re honoring the ones that are here now, and we’re teaching the next generation that this is what needs to be done.”
