WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is beginning the first comprehensive inventory of an estimated 300 memorials at about 100 national cemeteries to coincide with National Historic Preservation Week, May 12-18, 2002.
VA is looking for volunteers through September to gather historical information and detailed descriptions of the memorials. Individual headstones and post-1960 text tablets are excluded from the inventory project, which will last through the year.
“We have a great number of cemetery memorials, large and small, beginning with those installed after the Civil War,” said Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Robin L. Higgins. “Cataloging the existing structures is our stewardship responsibility, and the information may also guide VA to better manage our 21st century memorials.”
Historic cemetery memorials include inscribed stone blocks, bronze tablets affixed to boulders, sundials, sarcophagi, obelisks, columns and the ubiquitous soldier standing atop a granite pedestal. Contemporary memorials are typically a standardized 18” x 24” bronze plaque.
Some, however, are substantial buildings, such as the Medal of Honor Memorial (1999) at California’s Riverside National Cemetery and the Pennsylvania Veterans’ Memorial (2001) at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Annville, Pa.
The project will also offer essential information to support VA’s goal of maintaining its cemeteries as the best in the world, an objective VA calls its “national shrine commitment.”
VA is recruiting volunteers from diverse sources, including Civil War organizations, scout groups, veterans service organizations and VA employees.
Volunteers will be given a cemetery map, survey form, instructions and film to take photographs of each memorial, and are encouraged to conduct some local historical research as part of the project.
The solicitation is based on the model developed by Save Outdoor Sculpture (SOS!), a Washington, DC-based, non-profit organization that uses volunteers to survey public outdoor sculpture nationwide. Information gathered through the SOS! program is publicly accessible through an on-line database managed by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), called SIRIS (http://www.siris.si.edu). As part of its educational program, VA will make its findings available to SOS! and SAAM.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sponsors national Historic Preservation Week annually.
VA manages 120 national cemeteries as well as 33 government, soldiers’ and confederate lots in non-federal cemeteries throughout 41 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
More information about the project and how to volunteer is found at www.cem.va.gov under “What’s New.” Interested individuals or organizations can also email nca.memorials@mail.va.gov or write to:
Sara Amy Leach, Historian
Department of Veterans Affairs
National Cemetery Administration
810 Vermont Ave., NW (402B4)
Washington, DC 20420
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