Here's a Civic Lesson You Can Do At Home

Memorial Day editorial in The Seattle Times:

Seattle’s Memorial Wall inspires youth to uphold timeless values

Since its unveiling in 1951 at the east end of Memorial Stadium on what later became the Seattle Center campus, the landmark has displayed the etched names of 762 Seattle graduates who lost their lives in World War II. 

When the renovation project is finished next year, it will be provided the honor and solemnity that is its due. Gratitude to city planners, Seattle Public Schools, volunteers and One Roof Sports & Entertainment for making sure to do that.

Okay but SPS did NOTHING for decades to maintain and honor that wall. I hope when it is rededicated that Superintendent Shuldiner does indeed mention that oversight.

SPS did run a design contest for the memorial and a Garfield senior won.

Marianne Hanson, born and raised in Seattle to Swedish immigrant parents, was a senior at Garfield High School when her design was selected as the winner out of 61 entries for the wall.

 She wrote the inscription that remains to this day: “YOUTH HOLD HIGH YOUR TORCH OF TRUTH, JUSTICE AND TOLERANCE, LEST THEIR SACRIFICE BE FORGOTTEN. 

That is the responsibility of Memorial Day. It is more than putting out a flag and expressing love of country. It is about understanding the nature of sacrifice. 
 
It is about what a citizen is expected to give up in service of truth, justice and tolerance. It is about holding high our collective ideals. 
 
Are these things a matter of perspective? Can one American have a definition of truth, justice and tolerance that runs counter to another’s? 
 
Or is there some fundamental value expressed on this Memorial Wall inscription, above the names of so many young people?

I can tell you that my own young adult children are unhappy with this country and want to check out of any 250th anniversary celebration of the founding of our country.

I tell them that it was not always this way. That we are not and have never been a perfect country but boy, do other countries look up to us.

And that so many fellow Americans died to keep this country alive, whether the reason they were fighting was not good.

Talk to your kids and see what they say. Our country lives and dies by its youth who eventually become the next generation of adults. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
My first job out of college in 1986 was as a substitute secretary for SPS, and I spent a whole summer reorganizing the files of the Athletic Office, some as old as the 1930s. I found a folder of letters from parents whose children's names had been left off the memorial - heartfelt notes specifying when, where, and how they had been killed in WWII, and asking for their inclusion. It was a wake up call for me of what the memorial meant to those families, a place I'd walked by a hundred times without a thought. (Also archived - the design proposal that preceded Memorial Stadium, a full athletic facility including stadium with track at Lower Woodland.)
-Reflective
5/31/26, 10:52 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Reflective, I, too, spent some time in the Archives looking for information on Memorial Stadium. I may ask them to look into what you found because it still may be possible to add SPS students killed in WWII to the memorial. I would also love to find that design proposal for a stadium at Lower Woodland.
6/1/26, 4:14 PM
Anonymous said…
Oh I think they were added at the time, the letters were from the 50s. You should be able to track down the design, big drawings and everything. I think it was proposed in the 30s but I'm remembering from 1986 so not 100% sure. Sent it all down in the summer of 86 or summer of 87.
-reflective
6/2/26, 10:08 AM
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