NORTHAMPTON — Lining the street, sitting on curbs and in chairs, on porches and lawns the very young to the very old turned out in record-breaking numbers for the 150th Florence Memorial Day Commemoration.
Sitting near the corner of Main and Chestnut streets with her young children, husband and family, Christy Parent waited for the parade to arrive. A South Hadley native, Parent started coming to the parade about seven years ago when her daughter was a baby. Her husband’s family, she said, grew up in the area and has a long tradition of attending the parade.
Her husband’s grandfather, 95-year-old Bob Parent, grew up on Federal Street. As the youngest of seven children, he said the family would walk up to the parade route to watch it and said he’s been coming to the parade forever — before and after his own military service. To be able to share the day with multiple generations of his family — son, grandson and great-grandchildren — was wonderful, Parent said.
Parent’s three-year service in the U.S. Air Force started about a year after he graduated from high school in 1941. Of the approximately nine people who served with Parent as crewmen on a B-17 in World War II, he said he is one of the few left. On Memorial Day, he said he remembers the people who went before him and those who were in the service with him.
“I think of them often,” he said.
This year’s parade was larger than in years past because of the 150th anniversary, and organizers estimated the crowd at close to 5,000, or three to five times the size of the normal attendance, according to Mayor David Narkewicz.
The parade stepped off at 1 p.m. from Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School on Locust Street and traveled through downtown Florence more than 1.5 miles before ending at the Elks Lodge on Spring Street.
“Of course we never had it this big,” Parent said. “It only comes around every 150 years. I hope to be here for the next one.”
Participating in the Florence Memorial Day parade for the first time this year, Look Park repurposed its Christmas parade float for the occasion, swapping out winter-themed items for picnic tables and flags, said head ranger Alison Lucey.
“We are very conscious of our veterans,” Lucey said.
Monday’s parade also marked the first time students from Springfield Central High School’s Air Force Junior ROTC marched in Florence. Nearly 60 students made up the drum corps, drill team and flag core that participated, according to Chief Master Sgt. Bill Butman.
“Our mission is to develop citizens of character dedicated to serving their nation and community,” Butman said.
The parade also marked a first for the recently formed VFW Riders from district 7, according to its president Ken White, of Chicopee. The group, the first in New England, formed in 2016 and encompasses 18 posts.
By 1:30 p.m. the gray clouds that lingered all morning began to clear as the parade reached downtown Florence.
Watching the parade pass by from the front steps of his mother’s Park Street home, Ed Severance said it was “family law” to be there for Memorial Day. The family has watched the parade from that spot for almost five decades. Severance’s father was a Korean War veteran.
“Veterans Day is for the ones who made it back,” he said. “Memorial Day is for the ones who didn’t.”
Following the parade, a ceremony was held on the lawn at the Elks Lodge featuring speeches from Narkewicz, Central Hampshire Veterans’ Services Director Steve Connor, Congressman Jim McGovern, former state Sen. Stan Rosenberg, Gold Star Mother Tracy Taylor and Maj. Gen. Gary Keefe, U.S. Air Force and adjutant general of the Massachusetts National Guard.
Rosenberg noted that, generation after generation, people and communities have gathered on this day to recognize the sacrifices made in service to the United States.
“This wonderful village of Florence in this wonderful great city of Northampton is no exception,” he said, “and for 150 years individuals have come together to organize and to commemorate, to remember, not only those who sacrificed on the battlefield but also the families of those individuals and actually the community as a whole.”
Rosenberg presented a certificate to Connor on behalf of himself and the late Rep. Peter Kocot in recognition of the event’s 150th anniversary.
McGovern told those gathered that we should always be grateful for those who have served and continue to serve the country.
“Part of the way we show gratitude on this Memorial Day is that we need to care more. We need to love more. We need to embrace all that is good. We need to embrace decency, civility and respect for one another,” McGovern said. “We need to work harder for justice and for peace all throughout the world. We need to recommit ourselves to making our community better and our country better and the world better.”
Recalling his childhood growing up in Florence, Keefe remembered his family’s Memorial Day tradition. Every year his family would attend the parade — sometimes marching in it — and afterward would travel to the Northampton police station and firehouse to thank them for their service. The family would then head to Barnes Air National Guard Base to do the same before heading to the Bridge Street Cemetery to lay flowers at family graves.
“I have no doubt that because of that tradition, me and two of my brothers … we raised our right hand and took an oath to defend the Constitution,” Keefe said. “What is interesting about that is that we weren’t special. We were just one of a bunch of families in Northampton that did that every year.”
For the families and communities who have lost people to war, Keefe said, each day is a constant reminder of what might have been.
“Their only comfort is the knowledge that each died doing what they believed in and gave all they had so that others may live, prosper and enjoy the fullest life that America promises every citizen,” Keefe said.
“Their deaths, like their lives, were truly acts of faith,” he said. “Faith in America. Faith in our communities and above all, faith that we their families, friends, neighbors and colleagues will live lives that honor their service and preserve what they defended.”
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.