These Volunteers Place American Flags on 15,000 Veterans’ Graves
In the week leading up to Memorial Day, a small group works to honor heroes throughout Allegheny Cemetery in Lawrenceville.
PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER
Dressed in a star-spangled outfit, Marlene Scholze hoists a bundle of American flags onto her shoulder and sets off for the Allegheny Cemetery Soldiers’ Lot, where hundreds of Civil War veterans rest in peace.
“As long as I can walk, I’ll be here,” says the 66-year-old.
Every May for more than three decades, she and fellow Bloomfield resident Connie Beck have led volunteers on a mission to place Old Glory on 15,000 graves.
PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER
About a week before Lawrenceville’s annual Memorial Day Parade, one of the oldest and largest in the country, volunteers get to work distributing flags supplied by Allegheny County. This year, rain and temperatures near 90 degrees slowed the process, but didn’t dampen the patriotic spirit.
On May 19, I joined Rick Scholze, Marlene’s brother, and Mike and Melanie Hickey of Turtle Creek, on a hillside where most of the markers were obscured by grass clippings and the ravages of time.
It’s a humbling experience to walk down each row, brushing away the past to reveal the names of long-lost heroes, including Daniel Byrd Staples, who served in World War I and World War II. The only sounds I hear are bird songs and the tink-tink-tink of hammers driving each flag into the hard ground. Allegheny Cemetery removes and properly disposes of flags as they become worn or damaged, as the United States Flag Code requires.
“It’s nearly impossible to get to them all,” says Mike Hickey, who served in the United States Air Force, “but we try.”
Founded in 1844, the 300-acre cemetery is divided into 64 sections, including at least four designated for veterans, connected by 15 miles of roadways.
Organizers are always trying to recruit volunteers to carry on the solemn task.
For the past 11 years, Marlene Scholze, who works for Pittsburgh Mercy Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities Services, has brought a group of program participants to the cemetery to help out.
It’s tough, but rewarding work.
“They love doing it and the cemetery loves having them,” she says.
PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER
Other volunteers come from local Lions Clubs, Boy Scout troops, members of the 911th Airlift Wing, Trinity Christian School, VFW Post 214, the Seraphic Mass Association, Allegheny County’s Community Intensive Supervision Program. Family and friends pitch in, too.
In the ‘90s, when Scholze and Beck were coaching a youth softball team in Bloomfield sponsored by the Catholic War Veterans, member Pietro “Pete” Fantone suggested they assemble the young athletes for flag detail.
PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER
The World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient guided volunteers until his death in 2023 at age 98. Fantone is interred at Hazelwood’s Calvary Catholic Cemetery, but his name is on Allegheny Cemetery’s Soldier’s Memorial, a 116-foot wide, 30-foot tall wall of honor.
Carved into the stone quarried from the cemetery’s hills are words from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”
Lawrenceville’s Memorial Day Parade, a tradition that began in 1872, starts at 10 a.m. on Monday, May 25 at 36th and Butler streets. The event concludes with a tribute service at the Soldiers’ Memorial. Following the ceremony, there will be food trucks stationed near Allegheny Cemetery’s fountain.
