When Kathleen Grainger-Schaffer arrived at Jastro Park on Saturday with her father, World War II veteran Walter Grainger, the two of them couldn’t hide their emotions.
Father and daughter have been working well more than a year to plan, raise funds and bring to fruition the Kern County World War II Veterans Memorial at the park in downtown Bakersfield. And when they saw the 4-ton slabs of carved black granite that had been installed that morning, the tears came as they took it all in.
“I am tremendously grateful to our community for joining the effort to honor our World War II veterans,” she said afterward.
“Dad and I were in tears this morning as we took pictures at the site. The emotions are overwhelming.”
It’s been a long time coming, but Dedication Day, featuring the unveiling of the memorial’s touching bronze centerpiece created by nationally known — yet Bakersfield’s own sculptor Benjamin Victor — will be held beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday.
And it’s going to be huge.
Two of Truxtun Avenue’s four lanes will be closed so bleachers can be erected facing the park and the finished memorial. Hundreds more chairs will be placed on the lawn surrounding the place of honor.
Parking is going to be distant, requiring organizers to bring in a shuttle system to transport as many as 1,000 attendees, if not more.
Free parking and shuttle service will be available at two locations, Yokuts Park and the parking lot at First Presbyterian Church on Truxtun Avenue and H Street, said Ed Gaede, a Vietnam veteran and president of the board of directors for the memorial committee.
Like so many on the team of volunteers who have shepherded this complex project through months of sweat and stress, frustration and triumph — from painstaking fundraising efforts to dealing with delays in the shipping of massive black granite slabs from Asia — Gaede can hardly believe the dedication is less than a week away.
“I’m deeply humbled to see our community generously come together to support this long overdue memorial, grateful to all who helped bring this vision to fruition, and thankful our Greatest Generation World War II veterans are finally honored with this beautiful memorial,” he said.
In a surprise revealed here for the first time, Victor, the sculptor of the memorial’s bronze centerpiece, has included a steel canister in the heart of his sculpture.
The Foothill High School graduate is known for creating more sculptures on display in the U.S. Capitol rotunda than any living artist.
Although he is one of the country’s most esteemed sculptors, to talk with him about this project is to recognize that he places great importance and priority in this local project in his hometown.
The 6-foot-tall statue, standing on a 5-foot base, depicts a grieving World War II-era wife and mother, holding her young son. She has just received a telegram informing her that her husband has been killed in action.
The small metal capsule Victor welded into her heart is filled with sand from Utah and Omaha beaches in Normandy, France, two historic beaches stormed by the Allies on D-Day.
“Now in the interior of the sculpture,” Victor said, “is the sands of the beaches where we lost so many of our brave American heroes from world War II.”
Grainger, the World War II veteran who served long hours on the memorial committee, is 96. He was the first to sketch an early concept of the layout of the memorial.
“I am overwhelmed to think that this Kern County World War II Veterans Memorial will be a place of honor, reverence and education for future generations,” he said.
At Saturday’s dedication ceremony, Grainger’s original sketch will be displayed for guests to see.
On Friday morning and again, early Saturday morning, Project Manager Paul Burzych wore a green safety vest as he watched over the work and fielded calls on his mobile phone.
Burzych praised Kern County’s construction community for its generosity and spirit of involvement. Almost every service and much of the materials needed to build the memorial were donated.
“Concrete, grading, the flagpoles were donated, the electrical was donated,” he said. “The construction community in kern County is amazing.
“They came to the calling.”
The city of Bakersfield also stepped up, he said, not only by giving the go-ahead for the construction last year, but for working in cooperation in every aspect of the effort.
Memorial board Vice President Wendy Ward was just one more of those volunteers working incredibly long hours to nail down the myriad details needed to get to Saturday’s finish line.
Friday morning, her voice was ragged as she was obviously coming down with something.
How did it feel to be in the final week of this marathon?
“I don’t know that the word ‘surreal’ would be big enough to encapsulate the way it feels,” she said.
Feelings of passion and love and joy are coming out of the community as the project nears its culmination, she said.
“I’m trying not to be so emotional and keep my nose to the grindstone on this,” she said. “It started out with me simply wanting to honor my grandfather and all veterans for what they did for us.
“They saved the world,” she said.
And this is the least we can do.
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