Local families of fallen military heroes now have an honored place to grieve their loved ones who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Prominently situated in Downtown Elyria Square, the recently unveiled Lorain County Gold Star Families Memorial Monument is not only visually stunning with its black granite design and deeply patriotic themes, but also culminating in the years of effort and widespread community support.
Most importantly, it is powerful reminder of the profound sacrifice surviving “Gold Star families” have made toward our freedom, says Kimberly Hazelgrove, a Gold Star spouse, U.S. Army veteran and co-chair of the Lorain County Gold Star Families committee.
“I felt it was really important to elevate the loss that surviving families go through, not just on Memorial Day or immediately after the tragedy, but honoring and recognizing the loss, and the family members who live with that every single day of their lives,” says Hazelgrove, who lost her husband, an Army helicopter pilot, 21 years ago when his aircraft went down in Iraq. In an instant, Hazelgrove, an Army intelligence analyst herself, became a single mother to four children, the youngest only six months old.
“There is no timeline in grief. So even though my loss was 21 years ago, I still live that every day,” she says. “His birthday, our anniversary, our daughter’s wedding, a birth of a grandchild, those moments come up repeatedly, and it doesn't go away.”
Hazelgrove, who is also the vice president of Gold Star Spouses of America, a national organization that leads advocacy efforts for the surviving spouses, worked with a dedicated committee that included co-chair Jacob Smith, executive director of the Lorain County Veterans Service Commission, to dedicate the monument on Sept. 29. It is now one of more than a dozen in Ohio.
Designed by Clark & Post Architects Inc., the monument’s memorial panels are inscribed with Homeland, Family, Patriot and Sacrifice, as well as portion of a letter that President Abraham Lincoln sent to a Gold Star mother who lost her five sons in the Civil War. The monument is surrounded by inviting benches, flagpoles and six military service branch markers.
The Gold Star Family Memorial was created by a foundation named for Medal of Honor recipient Hershel “Woody” Williams — a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was awarded the nation’s highest medal for valor for his actions during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
