Parade, patriotism in Mount Joy

Lloyd Swarr's earliest memories of Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, are about his father driving his Cleveland car into Mount Joy from the family's Rapho Township farm.

Swarr's father decorated the car with American flags placed in a specially made radiator cap.

And, they would always watch Mount Joy's parade.

For most Memorial Days of Swarr's 88 years, he and his family have lined up along Main Street with thousands of others to watch the passing of the annual parade.

On Saturday, Swarr's family lined up to see him.

Swarr, in his white U.S. Navy uniform, served as the ceremonial grand marshal at the head of the parade.

"It's a big honor," Swarr said of the recognition.

Swarr, wearing the stripes of a quartermaster first class, said the only years he did not live just outside of the town were those he served in World War II. He spent those years on a destroyer escort in the Pacific Ocean.

Even then, he said, he felt the support of the community.

"You have a lot of people behind you," he said.

That is the way it is in Mount Joy, said Sharon Funk, president of the Mount Joy Memorial Day Parade committee.

"They're all there supporting the men and women that have served," Funk said of the people gathered along the streets.

In advance of the parade, American Legionnaires handed out poppies and cold water to spectators waiting in the warm, humid sunshine.

For over an hour, more than 56 units passed along the Main Street route, including veterans, military re-enactors, marching bands, fire companies and other groups.

Ned Sterling said he began coming to Mount Joy on Memorial Day when he was a boy. He would watch the parade pass from the shade of his aunt's porch along Main Street.

He continued the tradition when he bought the house, with his wife, Sue, 20 years ago, and became the fifth generation of Detwilers to own it.

With the house, came many of the American flags with which Sterling decorates the house. Smaller ones, along the street, are those handed out year after year.

Asked how many there were, Sterling said he never counted them.

"We just continued the tradition," he said.

Sitting in her van, parked along the parade route, Linda Quirk, of Lancaster, said she was continuing a tradition begun by her father.

"He was here last year," Quick said of her father, Franklin Sharp. He had recently turned 89 before he died June 22.

A World War II soldier and a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Sharp and his wife, Ruth, were members of the several American Legion posts in the county.

He liked to come to the parade to see other veterans he knew. "We always came back," she said of the annual event.

Earlier in the day, people gathered in Mount Joy's Memorial Park for the 50th annual wreath-laying ceremony.

"A day that is not celebrated, but revered," VFW Chaplain Jim Gamble said of the solemn remembrance of fallen veterans.

The ceremony included the raising of the American flag and the lowering of the flag to half staff. An honor guard fired a 21-gun salute.

Jim Way recalled Decoration Days of his youth in the 1930s.

On May 30, when the graves of veterans were decorated with flowers, his teacher would stop class in the one-room school house in Salunga. At 11 a.m., they would observe a moment of silence. It was then that he could hear guns being fired in the distance.

Martin Brown, said Mount Joy's parades were smaller and more solemn then, but have always been important in the town.

"It was always a big turnout. It was always a big day for Mount Joy," said Brown, a Marine veteran of World War II.

bharris@lnpnews.com

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