Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
Worcester, a city with hundreds of memorials to fallen soldiers and sailors, now has a comprehensive website devoted to those who lost their lives.
The website for the City of Worcester Veterans Square Project (www.worcvs.org) was created by Worcester police officer Sean Lovely, a veteran of the Persian Gulf War.
The city has been issuing memorials, about four feet in height, in memory of the city’s war dead since the end of World War I, Lovely said. Information on the monuments, known as squares, is limited, however, so he sought out archival material such as old newspaper articles and invited families to contribute photos and other items of their own.
The online entry for Kacevich Square, for example, includes several newspaper clippings about Vincent S. Kacevich, who was 17 when he died after the vessel he was serving on was struck by a torpedo off the Atlantic coast of South America in 1942. Fifteen years later, Basil Izzi, a crewmate who gained fame by surviving for 83 days on a raft after the vessel was sunk, spoke at the dedication of Kacevich’s memorial.
According to Lovely, the website, which is linked to the city’s official website, does more than just honor those who died. It also hints at the city’s changing ethnic make-up over the past century. When Kacevich died, the city had a sizeable Lithuanian-American community, and Kacevich’s square was dedicated by the city’s Lithuanian War Veterans organization.
By the end of June, Lovely had photographed, catalogued and posted on the website photos of roughly 240 veteran memorial squares.
“Every day I get a new email from somebody about something that I can upload onto the website,” Lovely said. “People now realize that this is a place where they can bring their information that was sitting in their top drawer.”