On the Triangle

The neighboring suburban community of Berea, Ohio, does not have a town square, but rather a triangle in the center of town.

I took these pictures last summer, but never posted them on the blog.  I thought they would be appropriate today on Memorial Day since the Triangle has a number monuments honoring the war dead.

The oldest monument stands at the northern angle of the Triangle and honors those who fought in the Civil War.  If you can read the inscription you will notice that it honors the soldiers and sailors from the township of Middleburg.  At that time Berea was a village within Middleburg Township which today is the cities of Berea, Middleburg Heights and Brook Park.

The monument is similar to countless Civil War memorials in small towns across the country.  I read somewhere that the Union monuments always have the statue of the soldier facing north, while the Confederate statues face south.

This small monument and antique cannon honor those who fought in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

This simple stone slab lists the names of Berea citizens who died in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.  My father was among those Berea residents who served in World War II (he was injured in the Battle of the Bulge), but fortunately his name is not on the monument... or else I would not be here.

Going back chronologically, the monument has the greatest interest for me is the one which lists all of those local residents who fought in World War I.

The names of three relatives of mine appear on that list.  Edward Plau was my great uncle, a brother of my maternal grandfather.  Edward served with the American Expeditionary Forces and was discharged in 1919 with the rank of Private First Class.  Edward, whom my mother referred to as "Uncle Eddie", died long before I was born.  He survived the war, but died at the age of only thirty five from kidney disease.

There are two members of the Swiss branch of my family, the Martis.

Albert and Norman Marti were the sons of Johann Jakob Marti who was the brother of my great-grandmother.  I never knew them, but they would have been distant cousins.