Dozens of volunteers spread out, searching Pleasant View Cemetery for the gravesites of war veterans Friday morning. The volunteers met at the American Legion at 8 a.m. to get their assignments.

George Stone, a former Kewanee resident, traveled from his home in Sheffield to help mark veterans’ graves. It’s work he’s been doing for the last five or six years.

Not far away, Mark Ouart, who has volunteered to help at Pleasant View Cemetery for the last five years, had located a stone of Carl F. Hultgren, a WWII veteran. Ouart said about fifteen people met at the American Legion that morning, but that many more volunteers had arrived later at the cemetery to lend a hand.

Pleasant View is one of the largest cemeteries to receive flags. Stone said the day before, volunteers had worked to finish up Evergreen Memorial Gardens. In addition to those two cemeteries, volunteers will mark gravesites in six other cemeteries, and a few rural ones, all before Memorial Day on Monday. In all, over 3,300 flags will be placed to commemorate the veterans’ service and sacrifice to their country.

(George Stone, left, marks the grave of Will A. Winter, a private from the 138 Infantry, who served in WWI. Mark Ouart plants a flag on the grave of a WWII veteran.) [Photos by Susan DeVilder]