A Northeast Ohio Memorial Day tradition that started nearly 75 years ago held its annual gathering at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brook Park Thursday morning. The Sterba family along with friends and strangers spent the day planting American flags at the graves of all the veterans buried there.
All 17,822 of them.
Neil Sterba’s earliest memories as a child are of going to the cemetery with his father, John Sterba, a World War II veteran who started the tradition as a way of honoring the veterans buried there.
“It's ingrained in my blood. My earliest memories are from kindergarten, bringing my friends up here and helping my dad, who, you know, had a cart and was doing it with maybe 30 or 40 people,” said Sterba.
This year's involved more than 150 people helping with the task The list of veterans' graves has grown, too. Sterba noted that most of the new names on the list are veterans of the Vietnam War.
“I've done it all my life, and I love it. And, now it's, it's a tradition,” Sterba said, noting his father started it in 1951. “Plus, there's a lot of good friends now. A lot of people that I've known forever that are doing it. And, you know, I get new people and it's just a great day.”
Holy Cross Cemetery covers 285 acres and includes 146,000 graves. It’s easy to get lost. Sterba has a master list of all the veterans' graves and provides maps on how to get to them. As groups of volunteers arrived, Sterba and his core group of volunteers distributed boxes of flags, pikes for hole-making and maps to the assigned groups of graves.
Some of the volunteers came in groups from organizations or schools; others were veterans themselves or had veterans in their family. Some were just friends of the Sterbas.
“We’re real close with the Sterbas, so whenever he asks for help we’re always here to help,” said Brad Sprecher, who has been coming for over a decade to plant flags. His group had 400 flags to plant on their to-do list.
Sterba’s popularity and closeness with the community are what powers the thriving annual memorial operation.
As much as the event is dedicated to the memory of those who’ve passed, it’s also a joyous gathering for those who remain. At the operations center, volunteers shared bagels and coffee as old friends met up and new connections were made. The mood could best be described as bright - for a cemetery, that is.
“It’s people’s favorite day of the year. I’m not lying,” said Sterba. “It's people's favorite day of the year.”
