‘Never forgotten’: Newfield to honor veterans with Wreaths Across America

Newfielders will have a new opportunity to commemorate local veterans this month by laying wreaths on their tombstones, saying their names aloud and reflecting on the meaning of service.

Community members will join millions of people nationwide by placing wreaths on veterans’ graves on Saturday, Dec. 13, which is this year’s National Wreaths Across America Day. The annual celebration is an integral part of Wreaths Across America’s work to “remember the fallen, honor those who served and teach our children the value of freedom,” according to the nonprofit’s website.  

This is the first year Newfield will participate in the national celebration. The town’s inaugural ceremony is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. at Woodlawn Cemetery on Main Street, which will feature the singing of the national anthem, a benediction, hot cocoa provided by Covered Bridge Market & Pizzeria and guest speakers, including Newfield resident and retired Brigadier General Gary Yaple.      

Around noon, following the ceremony, 286 wreaths will be placed on the graves of veterans buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, and 77 wreaths will be placed on veterans’ graves at Trumbulls Corners Cemetery on Millard Hill Road. Organizers said that additional wreaths will likely be placed at other locations around the community as well.   

“People die twice — the day they’re put in the ground and the last time their name is said,” according to Karen Trask, one of the organizers of the town’s inaugural Wreaths Across America celebration. “So, this is a way to make sure that the soldiers and veterans are never forgotten because their names are always said. The freedoms we have in this country, including standing for the national anthem and expressing our political and religious views, is because of their sacrifice.”    

The idea behind Wreaths Across America took shape in 1992, when the owner of a Maine wreath company began sending wreaths to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to honor veterans buried there. The nonprofit, which formed in 2007, later expanded its work by letting people across the country sponsor wreaths for veterans in their own communities.

Last year, more than 3 million wreaths were placed on veterans’ graves in nearly 5,000 locations nationwide, according to the organization’s website. Other cemeteries that are participating in the celebration this year include South Hill Cemetery Association in Ithaca and Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira.     

Patricia Huerta, a regional liaison at Wreaths Across America who grew up in Newfield, played a key role in bringing the ceremony to her hometown. In September, she gave a presentation to more than a dozen community members who were interested in joining the nationwide event.

“For people in other communities I’ve talked to, their first year of laying the wreaths is such a solemn, heartwarming and tear-jerking thing — to remember those who’ve sacrificed their lives for our country — and I wanted to bring that to Newfield,” said Huerta, whose husband and uncle are veterans. “You hold the wreath, you say the veteran’s name, and then you thank them for their service and you place the wreath. It’s such a meaningful and impactful experience.” 

The Newfield Historical Society and the Masonic Lodge teamed up in October to start planning the event. The historical society helped advertise the wreaths, with each costing $17 to sponsor, while the Masonic Lodge agreed to pay for any wreaths that remained unpurchased by this year’s Dec. 1 deadline.     

“The history center has always been involved with veterans’ affairs in the community, and this was just a logical step for us,” said Larry Miller, the historical society’s president. “It was a no-brainer.”  

Miller said that the number of people who sponsored wreaths for the event was lower than organizers had hoped, which he partially attributed to late planning. Only 21 wreaths for both cemeteries were sponsored by individuals in the community, and the rest were sponsored by the Masonic Lodge, according to Huerta.       

Miller also noted that the historical society will receive $5 in return for most of the sponsored wreaths, which will add up to just over $2,000 this year. He said the money will go toward the museum’s operating expenses. 

Jon Armstrong, the historical society’s chief researcher, helped verify veterans buried in town so that enough wreaths were purchased for the event. Armstrong noted that they are still seeking volunteers to help lay wreaths, and that people can already start sponsoring them on Wreaths Across America’s website for next year. He added that community members can opt to sponsor wreaths for specific veterans’ graves, including those located at any of the town’s dozen or so inactive cemeteries. 

There are already annual ceremonies to commemorate Memorial Day and Veterans Day in Newfield. Trask, who’s a member of the town’s Memorial Day Committee, said that volunteers honor that holiday by placing flags and carnations at veterans’ graves, but that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the town has stopped having a Memorial Day parade.

Trask served as a combat medic in the Army in Panama and Guatemala during the early 1990s. She said that her father, a Vietnam War veteran, passed away 10 years ago from cancer that he developed from exposure to Agent Orange, a powerful chemical used by the U.S. Army to remove foliage. She added that she hopes the Wreaths Across America event will inspire and teach younger generations about the value of military service.  

“The significance is to make sure that young people nowadays know the correct history and not something they’ve learned on Facebook, or that AI has provided them with a politically correct version,” Trask said. “Going to the cemetery and reading the headstones is a very eye-opening experience because it’s real. That headstone is real. That person was real. What they did with their life was real.”      

Newfield Historical Society opens new veterans exhibit 

Along with planning Newfield’s inaugural Wreaths Across America celebration, the historical society invites the public to explore its newest exhibit, which spotlights the town’s long history of veterans.  

The exhibit, which opened last month and will be on display until February, features wartime letters, photographs, newspaper articles and other documents associated with local veterans, many of which were donated by their families. The exhibit also includes a “Wall of Honor” with information about nearly 50 veterans “who paid the ultimate sacrifice” in the Civil War and both world wars. 

“Some of the early settlers in this area were veterans of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812,” Armstrong said, noting that there are at least six Revolutionary War veterans buried in Newfield and at least 16 from the War of 1812. “Some of those stones are still visible. However, there were most likely many more because people did not always use stones as markers in those days, and often people were buried on their own property before cemeteries were organized.” 

Armstrong said that the Civil War had one of the highest numbers of Newfield enlistees compared to other conflicts in the nation’s history. He added that people from smaller, rural towns would travel to Newfield to enlist in the Civil War.              

The exhibit includes items that have been in Armstrong’s family for decades, as well as information about his father, who was drafted into the Army during World War II when he was a student at Ithaca College.

Miller’s family is also featured in the exhibit. His grandfather, William Miller, served as a corporal in the 1st Regiment of West Virginia’s infantry during the Spanish-American War, and was buried at Trumbulls Corners Cemetery.   

Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, Miller served in the Navy from 1964 to 1968, shortly after graduating from high school in Newfield. His first three years of service were in the U.S., including at the now-decommissioned Glynco Naval Air Station near Brunswick, Georgia, where he fondly remembers getting married and playing fastpitch softball for the military base’s team.

Shortly after getting married, Miller was deployed to the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, a region dominated by rivers, swamps and islands, where he spent the last year of his service during the Vietnam War.

“It was kind of a harrowing experience,” Miller said, noting that he helped transport supplies across rivers, including military ammunition. “We were always either under attack or potentially under attack.” 

He added, “I was only 24 [when I joined the Navy] and a lot of people were a lot younger than that. When you’re 24 years old, you feel a little more invincible than you do when you’re 80.”