Memorial Day: Gardner

Green-Wood Cemetery, Section 17, Public Lot 14888, grave 774

Last week, as I passed by the Haysteads' gravesite, I noticed many nearby headstones marked with US flags. Paused for a moment, I realized this was done in preparations for the Memorial Day to come. This year, the holiday marks the 150th year since the end of the Civil War. Every year, the Green-Wood Cemetery offers a free concert to its visitors on the Memorial Day Weekend, featuring works of musicians who have found their resting place upon the lush hills of Brooklyn's largest cemetery.

That morning, as I do every day on my way to work, I saw the sign that leads drivers towards the mausoleum and trees that change their foliage with seasons, and a hill of stones the names on which reveal their Scandinavian origins. But with flags placed nearby some of the stones, there was something different on the horizon. "I didn't know he was a veteran," run a thought in my mind as I gazed upon a black granite leaning toward me; it looked like a family stone.

Few graves away, there stood what clearly looked like a military marker and yet no flags decorated its flank. From where I stood, the marble marker looked like an old Civil War headstone the likes of which dot many grave sites in the Green-Wood. I approached it and read:

 

Wm. P. Gardner

Co. H

14 N.Y. Inf.

And as I pushed down the grass that covered the last line on the marker, it all made sense; William P. Gardner was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. Yes, the Memorial Day tradition has its roots in the Civil War when it was known as the Decoration Day. "But why," I protested silently "isn't there a flag on this marker?" After all, the Memorial Day is no longer about the Civil War veterans, but about veterans of all wars in which American citizens (and citizens to be) participated. It is not just about beer and barbeque, but about the memory of all the men and women who paved with their lives the freedoms we enjoy everyday.

So, what can I, the ardent genealogist, do in order to honor someone on this Memorial Day? This is my way of saying "Thank you for your service" to what I discovered, in the process of writing this post, more than one veteran.

 

~*~

 

On December 11, 1914, The Daily Standard Union of Brooklyn published an obituary that read: William P. Gardner, a member of the mounted squad and attached to the 167th precinct, who died at the Brooklyn Hospital Thursday afternoon from pneumonia, was a veteran of the Spanish-American War and a member of Hubbell Camp, Spanish War Veterans; George B. McClellan Garrison, Army and Navy Union, and the Imperial Order of the Dragon. He is survived by a widow, Charlotte; his father, Frederick Gardner, and one sister, Mrs. Ella McMahon. Funeral services will be held in his late home, 166 Fulton street, on Sunday at 2 P.M. Interment at Green-wood Cemetery. 

The Daily Standard Union: Brooklyn, December 11, 1914

William's certificate of death confirms his occupation as "policeman" and the name of his father, but the document also gives his mother's name, Mary Bohne, and his birthdate, 8 September 1878. According to his military records, William was born in Dresden, Germany, but the records also hint on his father's middle name, August. Standing 5 feet 8 inches tall, William worked as butcher in Brooklyn at the time of his enlistment on May 14, 1898; two days later, he mustered-in as Private in Company H of the 14th Infantry. Discharged on October 27, 1898, William P. Gardner re-enlisted as private in Company F of the 5th Field Artillery Regiment on March 30, 1899. He served for three years and in that time attained the rank of Corporal, having had excellent character. With the same spirit, now in Yakima, Washington, William enlisted in 30th Field Artillery Regiment with rank of Sergeant and served until March 30, 1905, whence he was honorably discharged.

On October 25, 1905, after seven years of military service, William put down his roots and married Charlotte Andrews, a native of Brooklyn. She was born on 7 August 1880, the second of five children of Thomas Andrews and Lucinda Thompson. Her sister Jennie was born on 12 February 1878 (married Nicolas  Lana in 1902 and died on 17 February 1910), brother Thomas was born in April of 1891 and only lived for 18 days, succumbing to bronchitis. Charlotte's two other brothers, Henry and Robert, were born in 1882 and 1884, respectively. The house on 166 Fulton Street, where William Gardner was living at the time of his death, was also residence of Charlotte's parents and siblings. Most of her family, including her maternal grandparents, have found their resting place in the Green-Wood Cemetery.

The East Hampton Star, January 14, 1988

Unfortunately, William and Charlotte Gardner did not have any children, but Mrs. Gardner had many nephews and nieces with whom she was close. Charlotte's namesake niece, who married former Golden Gloves Heavyweight Champion Yustin Sirutis, was daughter of Henry Andrews. I met Charlotte Sirutis in May of 2012, when I was working in the Archives and Special Collections of the Brooklyn College. She had called inquiring about our interest in accepting her late husband's boxing memorabilia since Brooklyn College is the home of the Hank Kaplan Boxing Archive. I went to see Mrs. Sirutis on the same day she called the archives in her apartment on Colonial Road in Bay Ridge. She opened the door herself despite the fact that she was 90 years old and had a neighbor visiting her that day. Excited that her husband's personal belongings would be preserved for posterity, Charlotte showed me a scrapbook full of photographs and newspaper clippings that told the  history of Yustin's athletic achievements.

After that day, she called again and told me that she had more items for the archives. On my second visit to Mrs. Sirutis' house, she presented me with a folder containing her husband's diplomas from the Brooklyn Technical High School and New York University. She also handed me a rolled up photograph and when I opened it I saw Yustin Sirutis in a military uniform standing in the middle of his comrades; in the crowd of 300 persons, he stood out as he was six feet four inches tall, which is how he earned a nickname "Big Boy Sirutis" during his high school years. The rolled out photograph was three feet long with a caption: 537th Armored Infantry Battalion Camp, Campbell, KY, 1943. Yustin Sirutis died on January 6, 1988 when the couple were living in Puerto Rico, and for over twenty years, his wife Charlotte held on to the memory of her husband.

In September of 2012, we received a call from Charlotte Sirutis' niece who told us that her aunt died on August 28, ten days after her 90th birthday. Charlotte had told me she was going to live with her niece in Florida last time I saw her, so I had assumed she was buried somewhere in that southern state. Last week on my way to work, as I walked by the hill where William P. Gardner's flagless military marker stood, I learned that with him there were three more individuals laid to rest in that grave. They were Henry J. Andrews, brother of Charlotte Gardner, who died on April 9, 1948, Charlotte Gardner herself, who died on January 14, 1960, and lastly, someone whose name I was surprised to see, Charlotte Sirutis. At first, I was not sure this was the same woman I met in 2012, but the Lithuanian Sirutis is such a rare name that Charlotte's was the only one that came up on the burial database. I called my former supervisor in Brooklyn College Archives, and confirmed that Charlotte Sirutis who donated her husband's boxing memorabilia was the same person who was laid to rest in the Green-Wood Cemetery. It was serendipitous, especially because according to her obituary, Charlotte Sirutis was a veteran of World War II, US. Coast Guard, and a retired New York Police officer. So, before finishing this post, I paid another visit to the gravesite and decorated the marker with two flags; one in memory of William P. Gardner and the other for Charlotte Sirutis. Thank you for your services.




www.legacy.com

 

 

 

 

Service records of William P. Gardner