Olney Seniors Remember

Memorial Day at the PCA-sponsored Olney Senior Program at St. Paul's always means dusting off the gas grill out in the “backyard” container garden, firing it up and cooking 50 or 60 hot dogs and hamburgers. ARAMARK supplies the lemonade, corn on the cob and potato salad, but the seniors know where the meat is; it's out on the grill, sizzling over flames tended by grilling-chefs of long experience.

But Memorial Day is much more than just the start of summer outdoor fun. Memorial Day is a day set aside to pause and remember – really remember - those who risked, and in many cases lost, their very lives to ensure the continued freedom with which we Americans are blessed today. So many of us have friends, fathers or mothers, sons and daughters serving today in wartime roles that we are perhaps more aware than ever before of the true meaning and purpose of the holiday. That realization tugs at our hearts, and perhaps nowhere more so than here in our own Olney senior center.

The Olney Senior Program, thriving as it does in the bosom of St. Paul's fellowship hall, is a bustling treasure-trove of honored veterans of the past wars, conflicts and military actions that have kept America free. The senior members of the program represent a veritable mosaic of diverse military branches of service and eras. That isn't surprising, given that most of our members are residents of Olney, one of the most diverse areas of Philadelphia. We even have veterans of foreign armies who fought side-by-side with their American allies in the defense of freedom.

One of these Olney Seniors is Mr. Kyun Lee (second from left), originally from South Korea. Mr. Lee is pictured here with an Olney Senior Program Memorial Day display that features photographs of our members and their units during their military years.

Mr. Lee is seen in that display with his unit, in 1950, just after the beginning of the Korean War. He was a sergeant in the Korean army, fighting alongside the Americans in the defense of his country from Communist aggression.

Also pictured here is Harry Laird (on left). Harry was a Navy cook and electrician during WWII, serving on the heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City in the Aleutians and in the Great Lakes, out of Norfolk Virginia. (Harry tried to enlist to fight for his country at the age of 16, but his mom and dad made him wait until he was 17!)

Also pictured is Delores Sweeny (second from right), who served in the Navy, also during WWII, from 1942 to 1945. Delores was a Storekeeper 3rd Class out of Charleston South Carolina. She took basic training in Hunter College, and why? “Because I had a lot of family members in the Navy,” says Delores, and it was her way of contributing to the war effort.

At the far right is Mr. Russell Strihdt, Navy veteran of WWII from 1944 to 1946. Russ was an aviation gunner on dive-bombers.

The Olney Seniors’ Veteran’s Memorial display also shows members of one of the first African-American Air Force units during WWII, and veterans of the Vietnam and Cold War eras (who were not available for this photo).

Korean, African-American, Irish, and German, to name a few. Veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. All originating from different places on the globe and from different points in time, and all brought together by fate at the Olney Senior Program at St. Paul’s, where we gather to reflect, honor… and to remember.