More than 100 attendees marveled at the carefully placed flags on hundreds of veterans’ graves as they made their way through Evergreen Cemetery Thursday morning.
They gathered at the cemetery to attend the Veterans Day memorial event, a tradition that stems from its beginnings as Gainesville’s first municipal cemetery. This year, the cemetery added a new feature to the event agenda.
James Dinh, artist of the new monument, speaks during the Veterans Day event at the Historic Evergreen Cemetery.
Volunteers came to the cemetery early to set up rows of foldable, white chairs that faced the star-shaped monument that was revealed at the event. Government officials, like city commissioners, city managers and mayor, and speaker George E. Cressman, Jr., a World War II historian from Camp Blanding, sat in the front row.
Karen Pruss, one of the Veterans Day event organizers, said it was heartwarming to see the turnout of volunteers and event-goers.
“I really hoped for a really big turnout and it exceeded my expectations,” Pruss said.
James Dinh, an artist from Los Angeles, was chosen out of 60 other applicants to design a monument to honor the hundreds of veterans buried at the Evergreen Cemetery.
Dinh said he spent months working with the cemetery, and he received help from local businesses to create his contemporary piece made of stainless steel.
He said they were down to the minute to create the monument, and they only finished the concrete base this week.
“It's stainless steel,” he said. “I didn't want to do something stone. Obviously, there's just so much stone here. But then it's kind of classical with these columns. So it's not something that’s glaringly out of place.”
Russell Etling, Gainesville’s cultural affairs department manager, spoke about the 165-year history of the cemetery and the veterans buried there.
“The beautiful monument beside me is the result of the passionate work of many here today, as well as a formal process to select the artist who would speak to the vision of the board of the Evergreen Cemetery Association of Gainesville,” he said.
Etling said the Evergreen Cemetery Association served on the selection panel with the Gainesville Art and Public Places Trust, a citizen board appointed by the City Commission and charged with a selection of public art.
The Buchholz High School chorus and band headlined the concert portion of the event and sang military theme songs like “Echo Taps” and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
Milton Lewis Young Marines, a youth education and service program, also took to the podium. Its members sang the national anthem and pledge of allegiance.
“The person they're named after, Milton Lewis, is actually buried here in the cemetery and their unit is named after him,” Pruss said. “They're just wonderful to work with. The kids are great and it gives them some really great experience to do this.”
Timothy Hawkins, an Eastside High School student, said he has been in the Young Marines for over a year. He hopes to continue participating in other patriotic events.
Hawkins said he assembled his team to work together over the course of three meetings to prepare for the flag-folding ceremony.
“I assembled my color guard team together,” he said. “We had designated positions … I was the color sergeant for the color guard. And then we had our rifleman and our linemen and they did exceptionally well.”
Martha Cade, a 65-year-old Gainesville resident, also received a plaque dedicated to her mother, Mary Cade, from the cemetery at the end of the event.
Mary was the first to donate to the cemetery’s monument ceremony. While the cemetery was preparing the plaque for her, she died from health complications due to COVID-19 in September. She was buried next to her husband, Navy veteran, Gatorade inventor and Cade Museum namesake Dr. James Robert Cade, at the cemetery.
“It was a surprise,” Cade said.
Kristy Lisenby, a 61-year-old Gainesville resident, said she came to support her family friend, Cade, at the event for moral support.
Cade and Lisenby broke down in tears when the cemetery handed the plaque to them.
“We had no idea we were going to get it,” Lisenby said.
On Saturday, more than 130 volunteers worked through freezing rainfall to put flags on all the veterans’ graves in the cemetery.
“Veterans never got a break from the weather and neither are we,” Pruss said.
Contact Jiselle at jlee@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @jiselle_lee.
Jiselle Lee was The Alligator’s Summer 2023 Editor-In-Chief. She was previously a reporter with NextShark News and a reporting intern at The Bradenton Herald.
