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In under an hour, more than a dozen volunteers unpacked, fastened and placed 145 American flags at sunrise Monday in honor of Memorial Day.
The early morning hour didn’t bother those who showed up, including the four Sasker siblings as they quickly snapped the flags onto the metal poles and placed the poles into the ground-level holders.
“I don’t mind,” said Layne Sasker, the youngest of the Sasker siblings.
For the second year Layne, sister Lacey and brothers Sawyer and Cody along with their dad, Randy, volunteered their time to create the “Avenue of Flags.” Grandparents Stan and Marilyn Sasker have many years of experience.
“With lots of hands here, it doesn’t take long,” Stan said.
Maplewood Cemetery is located at the western edge of Luverne where 110 flags were displayed.
There were 35 flags at St. Catherine Cemetery located on the northern edge of Luverne.
Many of the flags have a little history attached via veterans’ names written on several of the flags’ hoist edges. The names represent veterans whose caskets were draped with the flags at their funerals. Their families then donated the flags for display at the cemeteries.
“It’s kind of neat that they do,” said volunteer Carol Boelman, who read the names as she worked.
She and her husband, Bruce, and son, Marc, along with his girlfriend, Emilie Baloun, fastened the flags to poles Monday morning.
More than 40 years ago a call for flag donations appeared in the May 5, 1976, Star-Herald from the local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign War posts.
“We know there are many families who have these flags who would like to see them in use, but have no way to do so themselves,” said VFW Quartermaster Eddie Deutsch in the article.
Each flag was marked and would be returned to the family if requested, Deutsch added.
Fourteen flags had already been donated for the 1976 Memorial Day debut of the “Avenue of Flags” at Maplewood but more were needed.
Ten years later flags appeared at the St. Catherine Cemetery.
Originally the flags were displayed for Memorial Day, Flag Day and Veterans Day. Today the flags are displayed only on Memorial Day. When not in use, the flags are stored in steamer trucks at Maplewood along with the metal flagpoles.
Vance Walgrave was Maplewood Cemetery’s manager from 1977 to 2000. He is now the cemetery board’s president.
He said by the 1990s the number of flags prompted the development of the “Field of Flags” at the north end of the “Avenue of Flags” in order to fly all the flags.
“So many people were asking where their flag was displayed,” Walgrave said.
Many flags, such as the one for Charles A. Braa, the former county auditor, are decades old. Braa served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He died more than 20 years ago.
Braa’s flag was one of the flags displayed Monday.