Our uncles died less than 40 days before the end of World War I. Though we never met them, we will never forget what they meant to our family, community, and nation. But now, unless the Supreme Court intervenes, the memorial bearing their name could be destroyed.
They came from different worlds. Alvergia’s uncle, John Henry Seaburn Jr., was the son of a laborer. He was assigned to a segregated African-American regiment with the 93rd Division of the U.S. Army, but under French command — the gallant “Red Hand Division.” Mere days from his 21st birthday, he died from wounds received in battle.
Thomas Fenwick, Mary’s uncle, descended from a Revolutionary War patriot. Before he went off to war, he was a standout pitcher for the “Hyattsville nine,” a popular baseball team in Maryland. Like too many soldiers in WWI, he died of pneumonia after being gassed at the front. His mother received official word of his burial 100 Christmas mornings ago on Dec. 25, 1918.
They are united today on the Bladensburg World War I Veterans Memorial, sometimes known simply as the “Peace Cross.” In 1919, Gold Star mothers decided upon the memorial as a way to preserve the memory of the service and sacrifice of 49 sons of Prince George’s County, Md. They, along with the American Legion, dedicated the cross-shaped memorial in 1925.
It’s no surprise they chose that shape for the memorial. The Celtic cross was a symbol of sacrifice, then as now. One thing our uncles shared in common, beyond their heroism, was that they were both initially buried under a cross grave marker in Europe. We both grew up near the Peace Cross and recall walking by it as little girls, considering the memorial to be the gravestone for our uncles. We still do.
A few years ago, someone filed a lawsuit against the memorial. The suit claims that the Peace Cross is offensive to them and that it should be altered, destroyed, or removed from public property. After almost five years of litigation, they convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to declare the memorial unconstitutional.
If those judges considered whether destroying or defacing the memorial that we consider to be our uncles’ gravestone would be offensive to us, they never bothered to ask or tell us. It would be a tragedy of the highest proportions to destroy our uncles’ memorial or others like it.
On Feb. 27, attorneys will argue before the Supreme Court on behalf of the American Legion, whose symbol is emblazoned on the memorial. We are proud to have filed a friend of the court brief urging the justices to leave the memorial to our uncles undisturbed.
Still, we fear that unless the Supreme Court overturns the lower court’s decision, a bulldozer will not stop at the Bladensburg WWI Veterans Memorial. It will knock over memorials in Arlington National Cemetery and on across the country until it rids the countryside of any monument or memorial on public property that even hints at the religious.
Alvergia treasures the photograph of her uncle, John Henry, her mother had in her house. It shows him as the family remembers him: a kind face in a smart uniform, eager to serve his country. The photograph of him was Alvergia’s make-believe playmate as a child in her mother’s home and now hangs in the Prince George’s African American Museum.
Mary recalls her uncle as the big brother on whose shoulders her father rode as Thomas went off to war. Prince George’s County remembers them both as two of the 49 on the Bladensburg WWI Veterans Memorial.
Six years after they died, the family of John Henry Seaburn Jr. published a poem in the Evening Star. Read these four poignant lines written by his family:
We loved you then, we love you still.
Your memory is as sweet today
As in the hour you passed away.
The sweet memory of John Henry’s and Thomas’ service to this country deserves to be protected. We erect memorials because we forget what we do not see. Destroy the Peace Cross and you rob the next generation of the memory of their historic sacrifice.
Alvergia Guyton grew up in North Brentwood, Md., and lives today in Silver Spring, Md. Mary Laquay lives in Hyattsville, Md., just a few doors down from the home her uncle left from to go to war.
