Westminster Widow Works to Replace 750 Torn Flags at Riverside National Cemetery

American flags that once covered caskets of servicemen have deep meanings to their widows, so asking them to donate the flags is sometimes difficult, even for Macel M. Ruth, a serviceman’s widow.

Ruth, 70, of Westminster, is trying to collect those flags to replace ones that once flew so proudly at the Riverside National Cemetery before falling victim to high winds and driving rains last Veterans Day.

The 5 1/2x9 1/2-foot flags “are an impressive sight when they’re flown at the Avenue of Flags,” said Ruth, who donated the flag that covered her husband’s casket before burial at the 759-acre cemetery, the final resting place for 25,000 other veterans.

A member of the Society of Military Widows of Orange County, Ruth has been in the forefront trying to replace the damaged flags, pointing out to other widows the worthwhile use of having the flags flown on Veterans Day and the Fourth of July.

“Most of the flags are stored in garages and closets and will eventually become tattered,” she said. “They could be brought out and donated as a remembrance.”

Cemetery spokesman Gene L. Chambers said: “It (the flag) is the last material memory of their loved ones, so we hold a program to explain in depth what will happen to the flag once it is donated to the cemetery.”

Each donor is also sent a certificate that includes the veteran’s name and branch of service.

Chambers said 750 flags are flown on Veterans Day and the Fourth of July on the Avenue of Flags that lines the cemetery. “It takes us almost four days to post that many flags,” he said, while noting that a lesser number are flown on other occasions such as Gold Star Mothers Day.

Ruth said 205 widows have already responded to the society’s plea for flags to replace those ruined by the wind last year, although “a lot of women did not want to give them up. They said perhaps at a later date.”

Ruth, whose brother was killed at age 19 in World War II and has a son who served in the military, said, “I worried about him going into the service. Everyone felt patriotic during World War II but Vietnam. . . .? I never came to the conclusion it was the right thing to do.”

With seven grandchildren, Ruth added, “we all had questions about that (Vietnam) and now, nuclear war.

When you talk about givers, Neomia Willmore of Westminster is one.

Besides just being named Outstanding Commissioner of the Year by a section of the California Parks and Recreation Society, she has been United Way Woman of the Year, Golden West College Outstanding Citizen, Westminster Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year, had an elementary school dedicated in her name and has been a Westminster Community Services and Recreation commissioner for 22 years.

Willmore said the only reason she got all the awards is because other people helped her.

And where does she get the time to do all that? “You have time slots and you give everyone just so much time,” she said. But most of all, she said, “my husband (Elza Willmore) is very understanding.”

Mark Higgins, 27, of Garden Grove became a bicycle junkie during the past year, so he thought it would be a grand idea to take a bicycle honeymoon with his soon-to-be bride, Debbie Abramowitz, 26, of Garden Grove.

Wrong!

They had originally planned to marry Oct. 18 but later discovered it was the day before the American Diabetes Assn.’s annual Southern California fund-raising bike ride in which both were to be volunteer helpers. She is in charge of a check point, and he is chairman for one of the routes in Orange County.

“I tried to persuade her to go ahead with the wedding and start our honeymoon on the bike ride,” said Higgins, a diabetic who finds riding helps control the problem. “But that idea didn’t sit too well.”

After mulling the problem, they felt the fund-raising ride was just too important for them to miss, especially since the ride is expected to draw 10,000 participants in the association’s most important fund-raiser of the year. The money helps research for the 800,000 diabetics in Southern California and 12 million nationwide.

So they’re going to be married Oct. 25 and then take a honeymoon trip to Mexico. Higgins said bike riding will be a major honeymoon activity.

Probably wrong again.

Acknowledgments--Linda Navarro Edwards, 39, who spent her childhood in Alta Vista, a small La Habra Mexican-American neighborhood and has been tireless in successfully including the area in a restoration project, was given the La Habra Neighborhood Housing Services Good Neighbor Award, its highest honor.