SPANISH FORK, Utah — As Utahns prepare to remember our fallen servicemen and women across the state this Memorial Day Weekend, a local woman is doing all she can to ensure their places of remembrance are ready for the special occasion.
It’s a time of year when remembrance is top of mind.
“It’s about honoring their service,” said Curtis Fisher, commander of American Legion Post 68.
Jackie Stevens recalls stories of her grandfather, Darrel — "The Man on the Tennessee" — who she says helped warn fellow soldiers of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“He was raising the flag that morning and he was watching as the airplanes were coming in and bombing,” Stevens said.
He lived to tell those tales until 2006. When she’d go to his grave to relive those moments, she was often disappointed at his surroundings.
“It was always so dirty,” said Stevens. “Animal droppings, grass clippings.”
So she made a habit of cleaning it up every time she visited, and she ended up learning how to do the work professionally.
“People started calling me, asking me to do theirs as well,” Stevens said.
That led Stevens to start "Headstone Heroes," where she’s helped to restore thousands of gravesites around the American West.
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Recently, it brought her to the Spanish Fork Cemetery. While she worked on some headstones there, she took notice of their Veterans Memorial.
“It’s got all these water minerals, fluoride, fertilizer,” said Stevens. “It was rotting, and it’s just so sad.”
First built in 1972, the local veterans council says it hadn’t been touched up in the half-century since.
“Over time, water marks and rust from the sprinklers and stuff affected how it looked,” Fisher said.
So Stevens went before Curtis Fisher and the council, offering to give it a makeover— free of charge.
“We voted to restore it and make it look better than what it was originally,” said Fisher.
With that approval, her team got to work in April — removing the stucco, power washing statues, and giving everything a fresh coat of paint.
After more than a month of hard work, Stevens says they finished the job on Friday — just in time for the holiday weekend.
“It’s heartwarming to see the people wander and find their veteran's name on the wall, find their name on the cross,” Fisher said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Fisher says the cemetery holds the memories of nearly 200 years of military history.
“The crosses go clear back to the Black Hawk War,” Fisher said, nodding to the sea of white crosses they recently staked for the holiday. “This is like holy ground.”
Stevens hung a Hawaiian lei around the neck of the Navy soldier statue, a personal finishing touch as she hopes they’ve helped the memory of their sacrifice to live on for decades more.
“It just makes me feel so much closer to my grandpa,” Stevens said. “It looks so beautiful.”
If you’d like to attend, Spanish Fork will hold its Memorial Day tribute at the new-look site on Monday at 10:30 a.m. According to the city’s website, it will feature a gun salute, musical numbers and a speaker from the Bennion Veterans Home.
