While growing up, I heard about the family’s connection to a celebrated war hero. Not paying much attention to history, or at least not to the details of family history, in those formative years, I was unsure of the link that was claimed to a statue on Manchester, New Hampshire’s west side, an area where my mother’s family mostly lived.
One day last summer, when we happened to be in the area, I asked Jim to take some photos of the statue at Henry J. Sweeney Park, a tiny park in which this statue is the main feature.
Statue dedicated to Pvt. Henry John Sweeney
on Manchester, New Hampshire’s west side
A dedication plaque at the base of the statue reveals that Sweeney was the first soldier, from Manchester, to die in battle during World War I. He was killed in action on February 18, 1918, in France, during the “Great War,” or the so-called, “War to End All Wars.”
Family Connection
Apparently, there is an annual wreath laying ceremony at the statue. My mother had saved newspaper clippings that show various people at the site, including my first cousin, the late Mary Lee Sweeney Lamy. She is listed as the niece of the soldier, so I assume that my uncle, by marriage, her father, the late Frank Sweeney, was the soldier’s brother. Frank was married to the late Dorothy Sweeney, my mother’s sister. I shall attempt to document the relationships via a genealogical search, at a later time.
Monuments and gravestones serve several purposes. They help to acknowledge a person’s life and, sometimes, their accomplishments. They give notice as to the location of one’s mortal remains. They remind us of the brevity of our own lives and that we should try to make some contributions to society, between now and “then.”
Statues erected to celebrate our heroes dot the New England landscape. Americans like monuments. On a grander scale, we have erected the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., one of the more major efforts at honoring a great leader and a fallen victim. Of course, in the same city, we see the Washington Monument.
We do not necessarily need Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day in order to make the time to think about our dead, especially all of those dedicated heroes who have given their “all,” in service to their country.
I am pleased and honored to know that family members still honor their young soldier who died an ocean away, and almost a century ago. I am proud to live in America, where every life matters, and when a person is no longer here, we can still say by actions and by words, “I remember.” Who could ask for more than that … to be remembered?
Patricia Cummings
