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player ready...For the many Evanston residents about to savor the year’s most beautiful day yet, the Monday morning ceremony downtown reminded them that they would not have enjoyed it without the sacrifices of those who came before.
“I know the sentiment is to say ‘happy Memorial Day,’” Commander Brian Beatty, of Evanston’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7186, told the crowd. “I will tell you that it should be ‘blessed Memorial Day.’”
More than 100 people, many preferring the shade of the trees on the edges of Fountain Square, gathered there to honor the members of the armed forces who died in service.
They heard messages like Beatty’s, which listed the number of U.S. service member deaths in wars throughout history. He also mentioned the number of global deaths in the two world wars, civilians and combatants, and the sheer millions elicited some gasps from the audience.
He listed the names of some of those fallen service members he knew.
“As you sit on the beach, leave a space to remember their service,” Beatty said. “It wasn’t in vain.”
Several Evanston politicians attended the ceremony, including most Council members, former Mayor Steve Hagerty, 2025 mayoral candidate Jeff Boarini and others. Mayor Daniel Biss addressed the crowd, as did a representative for Cook County Commissioner Josina Morita.
Biss, who often speaks at the Memorial Day and Veterans Day events at Fountain Square, meditated this year on loss and sacrifice. He appraised the fundamental American principles of self-improvement and pursuing liberty as “beautiful and magical and sacred” things that those who gave their lives “consecrated.”
“There’s a lot that divides us right now,” he said. “We think about those divisions a lot. And that’s OK. It makes sense. But I think today, Memorial Day — as we thank those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in order to protect what unites us — should be an opportunity for us to contemplate that, and to think what we can do in support of that unity.”
So the day should drive Americans to defend those founding principles, Biss added.
Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th, held onto an American Legion flagpole for much of the ceremony. Before it began, he said many of his relatives served in the armed forces, but none died while serving.
“We’re gathered here to remember the American men and women who have died fighting for the ideals of our country,” Nieuwsma told Pioneer Press.
Meanwhile, David Hurwitz, of Evanston’s American Legion Post 42, told Pioneer Press that he likewise came to honor those who died serving the U.S. Hurwitz, who said he served in the Navy from 1997 through 2002, helped lay a wreath near the foot of the Fountain Square flagpole.
Following the speeches, the shots of a rifle salute rang out from across the street, and then a Northwestern University student played “Taps.” After a closing invocation, the crowd sang “God Bless America.” And so, less than an hour after it began, the ceremony for a “blessed Memorial Day” ended.