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Politics & Government

War Memorial Building Not to Be, but Vietnam Monument Rose from Ashes

La Mesa's latest recognition of local veterans continues a tradition of Memorial Day efforts dating to the 1890s.

On June 3—four days after Memorial Day—the city of La Mesa will designate Fletcher Parkway as Veterans Memorial Parkway. This represents the latest in over a century of La Mesa efforts to honor local U.S. armed forces who have given the ultimate sacrifices in service to our country.

Let’s take a look back at earlier Memorial Day—and war memorial—efforts.  

Early La Mesa Memorial Days

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Historians generally recognize U.S. Memorial Day’s formal origins to commanding Union Gen. John A. Logan’s 1868 proclamation honoring all Civil War dead. 

Often referred to as “Decoration Day” through the early 1900s, the day of remembrance of fallen soldiers expanded from its northern roots to a nationally accepted holiday.

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La Mesa’s earliest record of special “Memorial Day” services dates to the 1890s.  With the establishment of the first local church, La Mesa Congregational at the La Mesa Townsite (near today’s 70th and El Cajon Boulevard) in 1895, these early services usually featured special sermons for the last Sunday in May.

In 1898 the Congregational Church sponsored a “union” service for all denominations featuring “a special sermon and extra singing in honor of Memorial Day.”  The El Cajon Valley News and San Diego County Advertiser of June 4, 1898, reported a large crowd attending to honor the community’s Civil War veterans as well as those local lads who were likely to join in the recently declared Spanish-American War.

With local pioneering La Mesa civic leaders such as Civil War veterans Col. James Randlett and Maj. Henry Roach, recognition of hometown veterans would expand beyond the annual church services. 

Starting in 1908, the first of the nearly 20-year-long tradition of annual Fourth of July parades would feature local veterans of these conflicts along with other overseas military actions such as the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902).

By 1916, La Mesa’s “Old Soldiers Fraternity” had grown.  That year veterans were featured in services at La Mesa’s Methodist, Congregational and Baptist churches.  After these morning services, the “fraternity of old soldiers” marched for the first time east out Lemon Avenue to the Evergreen Cemetery (at today’s Bancroft and Lemon).  This special Memorial Day service featured music, song, Scripture and poem readings, decoration of soldiers’ graves, closing hymns and prayers. 

The La Mesa Scout of June 2, 1916,  reported the typical details of how locals Rev. Charles Hill, Rev. H.L. Glover, Rev. E.E. Marshall, Dr. Henry Porter and San Diego Cuyamaca & Eastern railroad president Captain W.A. Waterman provided inspirational readings and talks, interspersed with a full choir, local band and color guard. 

These musical groups accompanied the crowd through their solemn ceremonies to honor “the comrades and comrades’ wives who have heard reveille and for whom taps have been sounded for the last time.”

American Legion Takes the Lead

After World War I, the focus on Memorial Day also grew.  Congress established the American Legion as a mutual aid organization for World War I service veterans in 1920. La Mesa formed its American Legion Post 282 in 1923.  (El Cajon had formed its own post in 1921).

The two Legion posts held joint Memorial Day services in 1924 in which the highlight was the screening of the WWI motion picture Flashes of Action at the new La Mesa Theater (now the Gypsy Treasures store). 

La Mesa’s Legion co-sponsored the show with the San Diego Veterans of Foreign Wars post (The VFW traces its history to the Spanish-American War.  La Mesa’s VFW O.K. Ingram Ship 1774 having moved from San Diego to La Mesa in 1985.)

La Mesa’s Memorial Day event in 1925 included the traditional services plus a parade of “Legionnaires (WWI vets), Spanish-American and Grand Army of the Republic veterans down Lookout Avenue to the La Mesa Grammar School auditorium.  Local Red Cross members, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and grammar school children joined in the parade.  The Civil War veterans included one La Mesa resident—88-year-old Emory Hodgkins.

The success of this parade and Memorial Day services uncovered the need for more appropriate American Legion facilities.  Post Commander Dr. Joseph Parks—who had originally come to La Mesa in 1905 and had served as an Army doctor during the Great War—guided the efforts.  Subsequently the post worked to raise the funds for construction of its first Legion Hall. 

After a two-year fundraising project, the American Legion broke ground on its first “Legion Memorial Building” on the southwest corner of Orange and Acacia avenues in March 1927.  The 30x54-foot building was less than half the size originally envisioned but still included an auditorium with dance floor, kitchen and office.  It was formally dedicated on May 6, 1927. This small building would be the home of La Mesa’s American Legion for nearly 20 years. 

The post continued its dreams for a more grand war memorial building for La Mesa.  In 1934, a year after his death, the post “unanimously” selected Joseph A. Parks as the name for the “future” war memorial building.

Although the Legion continued to be an important service institution sponsoring beauty pageants, youth baseball, picnics, and Memorial Day events—including a small parade up through 1937—the Great Depression and World War II delayed plans for a permanent war memorial building.

WWII and the Proposed Civic Auditorium & War Memorial Building

La Mesa’s homefront involvement in World War II resulted in wartime recognition of our military heroes as well as plans for a more permanent memorial.  Starting in 1943, the city erected a billboard at the northwest corner of Spring Street and La Mesa Boulevard that listed all active La Mesans in military service.  The billboard would be taken down in 1946.

During the same time, it was clear to city officials that La Mesa and the region’s exponential population growth would require a similar expansion of civic government and facilities.

In early 1943, Mayor Ben Polak brought together a group of civic and business leaders, along with planning consultants, to create the “Greater La Mesa Committee.”  After a year of planning, the committee identified the city’s No. 1  postwar priority as a new War Memorial Auditorium.

In August 1944, local architects Alberto Treganza and Sam Hamill produced a series of drawings depicting a new War Memorial Auditorium as part of a major civic center for La Mesa (filling the property of today’s Civic Center). 

However, the beautiful but grandiose plan—and its $250,000 price tag (most houses could be built for under $5,000 in 1944)—seemed out of reach. Shortly after the end of the war, the fewer than 10,000 La Mesans and their civic leaders scaled back their vision.

By the summer of 1947, city leaders refocused on the smaller goal of a badly needed Youth Center and recreational facilities for Memorial Park (later renamed MacArthur Park, but still entered through Memorial Drive). 

In October 1947, the city revamped its Civic Committee and began to rethink its Civic Center plans.  In doing so, the vision of a large war memorial auditorium would slip from the eventual development plans of the Civic Center in the 1950s.

American Legion Moves Forward With Its Own Plans

In early 1946, the La Mesa American Legion Post, as well as their civically active Women’s Auxiliary—led by Mrs. Rose Miller Parks (Joseph Parks’ widow and the long-standing City treasurer)—recognized that their membership of 325 was about to swell with returning WWII veterans and their families. 

In February 1946, they agreed to purchase a parcel of municipal property north of University Avenue between Baltimore Drive and Date Avenue for $2,525 to build a new, and much larger, Legion Hall.  The new American Legion building would have been directly across from the then proposed City War Memorial Auditorium.

The Legion then began its estimated $50,000 fundraising campaign to ensure that an appropriate facility was in place to honor La Mesa’s veterans and post members. In order to save money, the project leaders, including decorated World War I veteran Rube Levy, recruited volunteer labor from their membership and local contractor George Riha. 

Construction of the new Legion Hall started in May 1947 but was still an estimated $9,000 short of funds to complete in September.  Rallying volunteers and life memberships, the Legion helped Riha complete the new building in time for a New Year’s Eve dance event to christen the Hall.

On Feb. 21, 1948, post Cmdr. Ira Durham led the formal dedication of the new Joseph A. Parks Memorial Hall.  Former post commanders and Mrs. Parks herself were among the luminaries who spoke of the importance of the new Legion Hall to all those who had served their country in the military—but also to the sacrifices of their families back home.

La Mesa Youth Create Vietnam War Memorial

The American Legion Hall is—and continues to be—an important institution for the community and its veterans.  Yet La Mesa still was without a public war memorial although it continued to honor its veterans through Memorial Day services during the 1950s and 1960s.

Ironic from today’s perspective, the conflict that would lead to La Mesa’s only publicly accessible war memorial was the Vietnam War. 

Today it may be hard to remember, or know, that when the war was initially engaged in the mid-1960s that public opinion was still generally in favor of the war.

As the casualties increased and the nation began to question the political reasoning and strategic execution of the war, it steadily became the unpopular war that most remember.

Yet as seen in the pages of the La Mesa Scout from 1965 through 1969, the local paper followed, recognized and honored La Mesa’s military sons and daughters serving in Vietnam, just as they had in WWI, WWII and Korea.

While the anti-war movement gained momentum in the late 1960s, the Youth for Decency, a national organization of young people in support of our soldiers in Vietnam, was created. 

In La Mesa and East County, the local branch of the organization formed in spring 1969 and named itself the “Heartland Youth for Decency.” 

According to founding member Denise Evers in a May 22, 1969, interview in the Scout, the group’s goals included support of American values, law enforcement, individual rights and supporting “our fighting men in Viet Nam, not necessarily because we approve of the war, but primarily because they are our fathers, brothers and husbands.”

Over the next year, Evers and the Heartland Youth for Decency continued to garner support for the veterans, including trips to Washington and Sacramento, where she met with Gov. Ronald Reagan. 

Partnering with the La Mesa Optimists Club and Junior Women’s Club, the group worked with the city to erect a memorial monument to those who gave their lives and served in Vietnam.

On Flag Day—June 14, 1970—the Heartland Youth for Decency Vietnam War Memorial was unveiled in a public event.  More than 2,000 people attended, including civic, political and community leaders, the dedication of the “pink quartz” stone and concrete war memorial monument at the corner of Nebo and University avenues. 

The monument featured small bronze plaques engraved with the names of those Vietnam servicemen from La Mesa, Lemon Grove, El Cajon, Santee, Lakeside and the surrounding area who gave their lives.

Unfortunately, such public professions of support for our Vietnam veterans were few and far between as the 1970s continued.  

Also, due to the religious symbols on the Youth for Decency monument, the property was later transferred away from city ownership into private hands.

The Veterans Memorial Parkway 2011

Still many have wished to provide additional, and official, city recognition for La Mesa’s military members and their families.

Current Councilman David Allan has led the latest efforts to continue the city and community’s traditions in honoring La Mesa’s local servicemen and women.  Allan, a veteran himself, has worked to coordinate local veterans organizations including the American Legion and VFW in support of the city’s rededication of Fletcher Parkway as La Mesa’s official Veterans Memorial Parkway.

The official unveiling of the initial monument signs will be held at 10 a.m. Friday June 3 at Parkway Middle School, 9009 Park Plaza Drive.  The event follows a pancake breakfast hosted by the La Mesa Fireman’s Association at La Mesita Park, 8855 Dallas Street.

RSVP for attendance is requested: 619-667-1105 or email cmoff@ci.la-mesa.ca.us

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