This weekend’s inclement weather and social distancing rules forced the cancellation of Natchitoches’ traditional Memorial Day ceremony that would have been held on Memorial day at the Natchitoches Parish Veterans and Memorial Park.

Despite these obstacles, the parish’s fallen veterans would not be forgotten. On Friday, May 22, veterans Ms. Dee Fowler and Mr. Jeremy Miller laid a wreath at the memorial fountain at the park that lists the parish’s war dead from WWI to the present day. Both veterans are former Army officers who are active in community and veterans’ causes. Ms. Fowler is the commander of the American Legion Gordon Peters Post 10 in Natchitoches, while Mr. Miller is active in both the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post. In addition, he is the president of the Veterans Park Committee.

The Memorial Day Program at the Natchitoches Parish Veterans and Memorial Park will continue next year and will feature the reading of veterans who have died since the last program. This Memorial Day let us remember the last part of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

“…But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863