Artifacts

Memorial Row

”In their greenness will they keep ever green the memory of these, our heroes.“
Elsie Tschudy, Kaimin
November 25, 1919

Thirty-two Ponderosa pines, the Montana state tree, stand in memory of UM men and women who died in service during World War I. The original trees, planted on Arbor Day, May 13, 1919, bordered what was then Van Buren Avenue from its campus entrance on Eddy Avenue to the northwest corner of the Oval.

UM President E.O. Sisson presided over the dedication, and Law School Professor W.L. Pope delivered the memorial address. “My wish would be that somehow, in some way, those whom we honor here might be present and understand and find what we do here as they would wish,” Pope began. He then recited Joyce Kilmer's “Trees,” reflecting on the poet's own wartime death the previous year. “They will be remembered,” Pope continued. “When we shall look upon the world and find it good, when we shall gaze upon the sky, the mountains, these trees, or any trees, let us resolve that like these trees their memory shall be ever green. So that when we shall be gone and shall have been forgotten, when the place where we stand shall know us no more, when countless generations of students shall walk upon this campus and look upon these trees, men shall remember and say that these men died to save the world.”

UM student Elwood H. Best, a marine wounded at Belleau Woods and decorated with the Croix de Guerre, filled in the dirt about the roots of the tree planted in honor of Marcus Cook, the first UM student to lose his life in the war. Best also played “Taps.”

The roll of honor included:

Ian Guy Anderson
George F. Bonzwitz
Virgil W. Bostwick
Lester Brennan
Roy S. Butzerin
Marcus B. Cook
Gerard W. Cornelissen
Paul L. Dornblaser
Sidney W. Dunbar
Fredrick O. Eitflberg
Norbert J. Gerondale
James H. Haubensak
Samuel L. Hiebert
Harry H. Higman
Ralph D. Johnson
Niel H. Jonghin
Raymond F. Loranger
Calvin S. Marsh
Carlos Wayne Matheny
James Muri
George W. Nichols
Chester F. Pogson
Roy E. Reynolds
William Emmet Ryan
James Claude Simpkins
John P. Skladany
Enier E. Strandskov
Bruce McKay Thompson
Henry Torrey
David Whitmore
Ward Woodward
Mrs. Yoder
Lillian Elizabeth Halse
Mary Frances Garrigus
Leila Requam
Kathryn Byrne