It might have been cold and wet, but that didn’t keep Kenilworth residents from turning out Sunday for the village’s annual Memorial Day parade, service and picnic.
The day started with a three-block procession that ended at Memorial Park with a ceremony honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.
The parade featured Kenilworth Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, music by members of the Bill Porter Orchestra from Chicago, and delegations from the Winnetka Fire Department, the Kenilworth Park District and other community groups.
After the ceremony, members of Kenilworth Scout Troop 13 hosted a picnic at the Kenilworth Assembly Hall, across from Kenilworth Village Hall, troop committee chairman John Hart said.
This year marked the 99th time the Kenilworth Club sponsored the parade and other activities, President Marcus Franklin said.
The origins of its timing — one week before Memorial Day weekend and the official holiday — are a little fuzzy, he said.
Virginia Anderson, executive director of the Kenilworth Historical Society, said the unusual timing has been the norm in Kenilworth since at least 1947, but she, too, had little concrete information about its origin.
“There are two theories I’ve always heard,” Anderson said. “The first was that the timing was because many families went to open their summer homes on Memorial Day weekend and so weren’t in town.”
The second, she said, was that people organizing events wanted to have the band from Great Lakes Naval Station play in the parade, but couldn’t get them during the holiday weekend, because it was in high demand.
“By compromising and doing it a week earlier, they were able to get the band, or so the story goes,” Anderson said.
Hart, a former scoutmaster who is also a member of the Kenilworth Park board, said he believes the early date stems from local Boy Scout history.
“The Kenilworth Scouts started in 1919, and the parade also started in 1919,” he said.In that year, the Wilmette parade organizers invited the scouts to march in their Memorial Day parade, and the scouts wanted to make sure they did everything right, so they had a practice parade the week before.
“It was such a successful event that they decided to do it every year,” Hart said.
Upcoming observances
In Winnetka, the village, the Winnetka Park District and the New Trier Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4831 will sponsor a Memorial Day parade beginning at 10 a.m. Monday, May 28 at the corner of Glendale and Elm streets. The parade ends with a 10:30 a.m. ceremony at the Village Green, 535 Maple St. An indoor ceremony will be held at the Skokie School if it rains, according to the village website.
New Trier graduate Army Capt. Matt Schachman will be the speaker at this year’s ceremony.
In Wilmette, Huerter-Wilmette American Legion Post 46 will sponsor the Memorial Day parade, which will start at 10:30 a.m. at the intersection of Lake Avenue and Ridge Road. The parade travels east on Lake, south on Park Avenue and east on Wilmette Avenue to Village Hall, 1200 Wilmette Ave., where there will be a ceremony, said legion master of ceremonies Nick Peters.
Village President Bob Bielinski will speak, and the Wilmette Police Department will provide an honor guard, Peters said.
