A few weeks ago at the Francestown Community Market, Scott Carbee asked me if I was covering Greenfield’s Memorial Day event. He said the veterans would start at the memorial on the Meetinghouse Lawn, stop at Greenvale Cemetery and then visit the World War II Memorial in Greenfield State Park. 

“But why is Greenfield’s World War II memorial inside the state park?” I asked. 

To which Scott replied, “I was hoping you would ask!”

Scott told me that Greenfield’s World War II memorial predated the state park. I called Lenny Cornwell of the Greenfield Historical Society to find out more, and Lenny told me that not only was the stone moved at the opening of the state park, it had also been briefly relocated to the lawn of Stephenson Library. 

“That was quite an upset in town at the time,” Lenny said. “Almost as big a to-do as the scandal about the Rose Window.”

(In the late 1800’s, a group of Greenfield churchgoers protested the installation of the Rose Window, the first stained-glass window in the second floor of the Meetinghouse, complaining that the  bright colors distracted worshippers from the minister’s sermon. Eventually, people got so angry about it that an entire faction left the church.) 

Lenny showed me a written account of Greenfield’s World War II memorial written by World War II veteran Maurice Bowes. Bowes,  who grew up in town, was an Army Air Corps 1st engineer and a top turret gunner in a B-24 bomber. His plane was shot down over Bucharest, Romania, in 1944,  and Bowes was made a prisoner of war. 

While Bowes was missing in action, Greenfield residents created a wooden honor roll memorial listing the names of soldiers who had been killed or were missing in action. The town asked Bowes’ mother to unveil the memorial. 

Bowes wrote that several years later, the wooden honor roll erected during the war  “began to fall apart.”  In 1955, the Greenfield Improvement Association, led by Dot Gilbert (who was the mother of Lee LeBlanc, who died last year) decided to create a permanent stone memorial  and dedicate the town park to Greenfield’s veterans of World War II. 

At the time, the town park was next to the town beach on Otter Lake. (The town has not yet purchased Oak Park). A stone with a memorial plaque dedicating the park to the town’s veterans of World War II was placed in the town park. 

In 1957, the state of New Hampshire began looking for a place in the Monadnock region to create a state park. Greenfield was approved as a site in 1959, and the state acquired the land for $19,045.

According to Lenny, the state also absorbed several private camps by eminent domain in the process, which did not make town residents happy. 

Construction on Greenfield State Park started in 1961, and the park opened in 1964. 

Bowes wrote that his father, Louis Bowes, was foreman of the crew who worked for the state clearing the land to create the state park campground out of the woods on Otter Lake. The town park was absorbed by the state park, and Louis Bowes helped move the World War II memorial stone to a prominent spot in the new state park. 

A photo from 1964 shows six Greenfield veterans of World War II – Ralph Russell, Arthur Blanchard, Charlie Blanchard, George Foster and Frank Hutchison – rededicating the World War II memorial stone at the state park. 

In 1998, Bowes learned that the World War II memorial stone had been moved to the lawn of Stephenson Library, adjacent to the plaque commemorating the veterans of  World War I. 

Bowes was determined that the stone be moved back to Otter Lake and remain on the land which had been forever dedicated to Greenfield’s veterans of  World War II. He personally organized and funded the moving of the stone back to Otter Lake. 

In 1999, Bowes and five other veterans rededicated the stone with a new honor roll plaque listing the names of 22 men from Greenfield who served in World War II. 

In his written account of the rededication, Bowes thanked Select Board member John Fletcher, who was then commander of the First District of New Hampshire American Legion; Select Board member Jarvis Adams III, a retired Air Force colonel and president of the Greenfield Historical Society; William Hopkins, a retired Navy commander and chair of the Greenfield Historical Society; Shirley (Lee) LeBlanc, who organized the town’s Memorial Day events; and Bill Bailey, who was a nephew of two of the veterans listed on the plaque and organized the Color Guard.

He also thanked then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, who recognized the rededication of the stone; Richard McCleod of the Greenfield Parks and Recreation Department, who spoke on behalf of Shaheen;  Ben Haubrich, from the state Division of Parks and Recreation; and Harry Sloan, who was the director of Greenfield State Park at the time.

U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, whose ancestors were some of the founders of Greenfield,  wrote a letter to Adams commemorating the event. The color guard and firing squad from the Antrim VFW and the Bennington American Legion Post 50 were in attendance. 

Bowes also thanked the late Dot Gilbert, the original creator of the memorial, and said she would have been proud to see the project completed at last. 

Bowes concluded his history: “Through 1998 over one and a half million have visited and enjoyed the beach and picnic area of the state park. What a wonderful way for us Veterans to be remembered! Thank you for a job well done.” 

If you have an idea for The Greenfield Beat, contact Jesseca Timmons at jtimmons@ledgertranscript.com.