Lisle to unveil new memorial on Veterans Day
Around Lisle, you can trust Don Smith with a secret.
A trustee of VFW Post No. 5696, Smith tends to keep his work helping fellow veterans confidential until he's absolutely sure his plan will pan out.
Earlier this year, he secretly applied for a $20,000 Home Depot grant to repair the Lisle home of an 82-year-old Korean War vet. Smith only revealed the surprise when he got word the application was approved.
On the day of the home renovations last April, Smith, a Vietnam vet, suggested he had another project on the “back burner.”
Turns out Smith would secure a grant — his 10th — from the Home Depot Foundation to help build a new veterans memorial at the southeast corner of School Street and Center Avenue on land owned by the Lisle Park District. That's a higher profile spot downtown than an old memorial the VFW decommissioned last month in Community Park near Lisle Senior High School.
“Unless I told you where it was, you'd never find it,” Smith said of the original memorial.
In preparation for the new memorial, nearly 100 volunteers spent about eight hours last week landscaping, laying sod and installing brick pavers — all funded by the $16,500 grant Smith obtained. Most in the group were Home Depot employees who worked on the project during their day off.
Electricians should complete some of the lighting this week. The centerpiece of the memorial — a granite monument stone with the emblems of all five branches of the military — will arrive in early November.
A ceremony on Veterans Day will unveil the memorial at 11 a.m. Nov. 11. Expect “a lot of pageantry” to celebrate a long-awaited memorial that recognizes veterans of every era, Smith said.
“We're going to do it right,” he said.
The event caps off a fundraising campaign by a committee led by Lisle husband-and-wife Karen and Dan Burris. Members raised more than $115,000 in donations, including the Home Depot grant, in about a year.
The Illinois Association of Park Districts will recognize the couple as outstanding volunteers of the year Friday during an awards gala at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Wheeling.
The Lisle Park District nominated them for the honor.
“Their fundraising efforts and the support of the community was nothing short of overwhelming,” said park district Executive Director Dan Garvy, citing the 250 orders for bricks with the names of those who have served.
There was, though, some debate about the location of the memorial, next to a blacksmith shop and the rest of the Museums at Lisle Station Park.
The Lisle Heritage Society Board raised concerns that the memorial would make it impossible for the museum complex to expand in the future. The group appealed to the park board last month to consider an alternate site at Prairie Walk Pond at Route 53 and Ogden Avenue.
Park board President Donald Cook said at the time Prairie Walk Pond is a “well-used area,” but that it would be “irresponsible” to build the memorial on property designed to flood.
VFW Commander Brett Nila said some members of the post also favored a memorial near Route 53 and Ogden. But he also recognized that the museum complex is still more visible than the “inaccessible” site of the old memorial.
“What it boils down to is we are supporting this because we appreciate the fact that Lisle residents want a memorial, no matter where its placed,” he said.
• Daily Herald staff writer Robert Sanchez contributed to this report