Jo Davis’ lip quivered as she stood in front of the wreath she had just help lay while a trumpet blared taps from the Eastern Promenade.
On Monday, for the 48th year, Fort Allen Park in Portland served as the site of the Amvets Pearl Harbor Day Remembrance Service.
It was only the third time Davis had been without her husband, Bertram Davis, a Pearl Harbor survivor who died two years ago at the age of 94.
Davis, who lived in Falmouth and Cumberland, used to speak to students at Greely High School about his experience at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He made his wife promise on their wedding day never to forget it.
“He just would have thanked everyone for being here and remembering the day,” said Jo Davis, who wore a locket around her neck with his ashes.
Gov. Paul LePage and representatives of Maine’s congressional delegation spoke at the ceremony, which was attended by several dozen people, including the color guard, the honor guard, veterans and their family members.
Gene Foster, judge advocate for the Amvets Department of Maine, set the scene of the day of the attack 74 years ago. Unlike the sunny weather at the ceremony, there was snow on the ground in Portland that Sunday and clouds hung ominously in the sky, he said. After folks got out of church, he said, word of the situation at Pearl Harbor started to spread and the city and the country were never the same.
Speakers not only acknowledged the victims and survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack but all veterans who served in the war that followed — “a generation of Americans who rose up so those men didn’t die in vain,” wrote Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, in a letter read by Pam Trinward.
LePage noted that Maine has among the most veterans per capita of any state. He implored those who were at the ceremony to participate in the state’s Veterans Legacy Project, a collection of war stories from those who served. First-person accounts of World War II are constantly disappearing as hundreds of members of the so-called Greatest Generation die every day.
“We want to hear your stories,” the governor said.
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