One dead soldier's family built a monument to grieve his passing and celebrate his life. Almost a half a century later, another dead soldier's family has spearheaded the effort to refurbish and revitalize that memorial.
Lt. Ross Beason Jr. and EM3 Don Hiatt were in different branches of the military. Beason was a pilot; Hiatt spent the final days of his life on a submarine. They never met, but they had much in common. Both died young in World War II, their deaths confirmed but their bodies never recovered.Both are remembered on markers outside the Meditation Chapel in Memory Grove in downtown Salt Lake City.
Beason's family built the tiny chapel in 1948 and dedicated it to his memory and that of 297 other young men who never came home. The legend over the door calls them "sons of Utah who with him trod war's last mile."
Utahns will have a chance to visit the chapel, which has been locked up for more than 20 years, following a brief ceremony Friday. The chapel will be open from 5:30 to 7 p.m., and members of the Memory Grove Park Foundation hope to establish other hours when it will be open later.
When the chapel - a petite Georgian marble structure with acid-etched blown glass windows and a floor of Georgian, Italian and French marble - was dedicated in 1948, more than 10,000 people attended. The governor and Adm. Chester Nimitz attended; the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang.
But over time, the building deteriorated. Kids scrawled graffiti on the back of it; someone broke some of the windows. Weeds grew tall, and trash began to pile up outside. And that's what Murray Hiatt found when he came to visit his brother's memorial.
Murray Hiatt was 9 years old when Don Hiatt disappeared. The younger Hiatt grew up and eventually moved away, returning to Utah to live just two years ago. One of the first things he did was visit the site, and he was distressed by what he saw.
"We're here today because of what they gave up," he said. "The graffiti, the trash - they're a sign of ignorance. We don't do a good enough job educating people (about their sacrifice). It's sad that happens."
He copied the names of all the young men that were carved in stone outside the monument. When the list was published, with a plea for relatives or friends to get in touch, he heard from the kin of about 250 of them. They formed the Memory Grove Park Foundation about a year ago, and the money they contributed is being used to rehabilitate not only this monument but others in the park.
It's an expensive process. Repairing the windows will cost $20,000 - one-fourth of it to protect them from future vandalism with bulletproof material in a second pane.
Seabees, men from the local Navy Construction Battalion, have donated their time to relay the flagstone around the chapel, along with other repairs. The city has run power into the structure.
One of the most unusual contributions came from Bill Love, who didn't have a relative memorialized there but was charmed when he visited it with his wife. He found the name of the company that produced the glass, the Connick Association of Boston, listed in tiny letters in the corner of one damaged pane, and set out to track down the drawings that eventually became the four panels of windows, each depicting a soldier from a different branch of the military.
He wasn't sure what to do with the copies of the drawings until someone told him about Murray Hiatt and efforts to rehabilitate the monument. Now he's part of the committee overseeing restoration.
The group still needs help to complete its work and oversee upkeep. Anyone interested should call Hiatt at 565-0875.