FRENCHVILLE, Maine — After thousands of hours of research, a Frenchville group has identified more than 650 veterans from their town. Now, they’re planning to etch those names in stone in a memorial planned later this year.
The Frenchville Veterans Memorial Committee formed last year to create a tribute recognizing all the town’s veterans back to World War I.
To make it happen, the committee will work to raise at least $35,000 for the monument, installation and maintenance. Members hope the effort will ensure that people from the small Aroostook County town who sacrificed for their country are never forgotten.
“We want these people to be remembered for generations, and that’s why we’re etching their names in stone. It will be a permanent marker in the center of our town,” committee member John Raymond said. “It’s going to be important.”
Members hope to break ground this spring and have the memorial dedicated either in late summer or early fall. They plan to have a large ceremony with veterans and representatives from throughout the state, Raymond said.
The committee includes Vern Labbe, who currently sits on the town Select Board, Father Dave Raymond, who now lives in St. Agatha but is originally from Frenchville and has strong connections throughout the St. John Valley and Aroostook County, and Gary Martin, another Frenchville native who now lives in Lincolnville.
Another member, Claude Roy, served in Vietnam and contributed considerably to research for the project.
The group first met at Romeo’s 1 Stop in town last August. Since then, they’ve gathered at least two hours a week to create a comprehensive list of all veterans who are either Frenchville natives or have lived there.
They’ve spent countless hours combing genealogical websites, researching at local libraries and reaching out to fellow residents and veterans to ensure that no names are left out, Raymond said.
“And when I say countless hours, I’m talking probably thousands of hours of research from this committee,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure we identify all the veterans who served, from World War I to the present. We’re doing our best not to forget anyone.”
In World War II alone, they identified 200 soldiers who served, which was about a fifth of the town’s population of roughly 1,100.
Claude Roy’s brother, Ken, has been developing a database of all veterans in northern Maine from every war, said Martin, who served in the Army for 34 years and worked at the Pentagon.
The database gave them a good head start, he said, estimating that about 60% of the names they were able to find came from Ken Roy’s efforts.
But there have been roadblocks. One is separating and singling out certain names, because some could easily be found in 20 different towns throughout Maine, Martin said.
“It’s amazing how a common name can repeat itself many, many times,” he said. “So a lot of the research that we’ve done was validating and confirming that we’re actually talking about the same person.”
Verifying the information once it is found and determining if the veteran is, in fact, from Frenchville has been one of the more difficult aspects of the project, Dave Raymond said.
“The greatest need now is to find the veterans who are still living,” he said. “It’s harder to find a record, through databases, so we encourage veterans post-Vietnam to contact us or the town office if they have not done so.”
The committee would also like to create a book that features selected memories from veterans’ service days. Claude Roy, who served in one of the first battles in North Vietnam, shared his own story.
“We broke up the bee’s nest,” he said. “I was involved in one of the first battles fought against the North Vietnam people, and that lasted almost a week. In the first three days, we lost a few hundred people. But they supposedly lost more.”
A book and subsequent film entitled “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson and Sam Elliott, showcased the battle. Both were generally accurate in their depiction of the conflict, Claude Roy said.
“They portrayed it pretty much the way it happened,” Roy said. “But they only showed one part of the battle, and we lost more guys in the part they didn’t show.”
Once completed, the granite monument will measure 6 feet tall and roughly 15 feet wide. The veterans’ names will be listed alphabetically, separated by the wars in which they served.
Anyone interested in donating or purchasing a paving stone for the memorial, or anyone with information about a veteran with a Frenchville connection, can contact the Frenchville Town Office at (207) 543-7301, or on 285 US Route 1, PO Box 97 in Frenchville, ME 04745.
“The town of Frenchville didn’t just raise potatoes,” Roy concluded. “They raised soldiers.”