ARLINGTON, Va. — Row after perfect, straight row of white headstones stretched across the rolling lawns of Arlington National Cemetery, each brightened for the holiday season with a Maine-made, balsam fir wreath. It is a moving and beautiful sight, made possible by tens of thousands of volunteers, and donations from many others to Wreaths Across America.
The wreaths were placed in the cemetery on Dec. 16, marking the 32nd year that the Worcester Wreath Company has brought its wreaths to Arlington.
”The way time flies it doesn’t seem like that long but it has been,” Morrill Worcester the company owner commented.
Worcester said 1992 was the first year he brought surplus wreaths from Maine to the national cemetery. After bringing wreaths year after year, he said his family decided to create a non-profit called Wreaths Across America (WAA) in 2006. As national interest in the project grew, donations came flooding in, and since 2014, WAA has been able to place wreaths on every grave at Arlington.
From the early years of the wreath-laying, the Maine State Society of Washington, DC, has helped to coordinate with the cemetery, and Society members have always been involved in placing wreaths. The group is comprised of Maine natives now living in the Washington area, including many retired military members, those working in the federal government or working for members of Maine’s Congressional delegation.
“There’s nothing that connects you and binds you back to Maine like a hard day of work here at the cemetery remembering, honoring, and teaching,” Joel Levesque, current president of the Maine State Society, said.
The actual work of placing wreaths on the 257,000 graves at Arlington happened surprisingly fast, as the large crowd of volunteers—projected to be as many as 85,000—spread out across the grounds going to dozens of tractor-trailers filled with wreaths that had been staged around the cemetery the previous day.
“People are lined up with their children, and that’s what we like to see; parents with their children, so they can explain that when they place the wreath they are thanking that service member for their service and sacrifices," Wayne Hanson, chairman of the board of directors of WAA and member of the Maine State Society, said.
Gates to Arlington opened at 8:00 AM, and in just a few hours most of the stones had been adorned with wreaths. Those placing the wreaths are asked by WAA to say the name of each service member aloud, a practice Executive Director Karen Worcester said the families appreciate.
“I was given a quote [saying] that a person dies twice. First, when their heart stops beating and life leaves their body, and the final time is when their name is never spoken again. And it's important to the families to speak those names."
Thirty-two years after that first trip to Arlington, names were again spoken, and those who rest in the cemetery were remembered, each stone now holding an evergreen wreath from Maine to mark the season, and the eternal wish for peace on earth.