[The Star-Ledger] They were born in the late 1800s and their deaths came nearly a century ago, but Melissa Hall, the pastor of the Episcopal Church of St. James in Upper Montclair, wants them never to be forgotten.
Not only for who they were. But what they stood for. And what they represent.
The seven young men from the church neighborhood died during World War I and their framed pictures and biographies sit on a shelf next to Hall's desk. Equally prominent in her office are the seven pairs of military boots used to symbolize their deaths during the church's weekend-long Memorial Day remembrance.
"We have an obligation to remember these men, and other men and women, who died in war," Hall said. "If we don't put a face to it, war becomes an abstraction. And when war becomes an abstraction, when we forget the human beings who are dying and suffering, it becomes way too easy to go to war."
Hall then took it a step further, as compassionate, thinking people often do.
"And when war becomes an abstraction, peace becomes an abstraction, too."
That's a Bartlett's-worthy quote, and the essence of it has driven her passion to get the memorial bell tower on church grounds restored and ready for the next 100 years.
