Where are the Hopewell Valley WW II Honor Rolls?

Hopewell Boro Honor Roll & Service Flag – 1943 Dedication

Have you seen the Hopewell Borough Honor Roll and Service Flag that were created during World War II to honor residents serving in the armed forces? And what about the Honor Rolls for Hopewell Township or Pennington or Washington Crossing / Titusville ?

These honor rolls and service flags were commonly created by different groups to honor members who had entered the service. These including large public displays displayed in towns, smaller displays by local groups including at businesses and churches, and also by individual families.

We have some information on the Hopewell Borough memorials, but only references and a few images for the others. So please do contact us if you have more information or materials.

The Hopewell Borough Honor Roll originally had six panels of names, and then was expanded with two additional panels on the sides, eventually containing over 200 names. The Service Flag had a white field surrounded with a red border, with stars representing locals in service.

These were installed in 1943 at a town dedication event, next to the then Hopewell National Bank building on East Broad Street at North Greenwood Avenue.

The Honor Roll (and possibly the Service Flag) then were displayed on floats at the Hopewell Memorial Day parades, including around 1959 and then as recently as 1992. The Hopewell Museum also has a photo from 1992 showing the Honor Roll installed in front of the Museum building. But that is the last known sighting.

Hopewell Boro Honor Roll, c1945 [Legion]

Locals in Service

After the U.S. entered the war in response to the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, towns began to see a significant drain of young people entering the service. By 1943, both Hopewell and Pennington Boroughs erected honor rolls to begin honoring their service.

The Hopewell Honor Roll and Service Flag were described in Dean Ashton’s 1947 book, Be It Ever So Humble, The Story of Hopewell, New Jersey, and its Servicemen During World War II.

See post and full digital scan of Ashton’s book, with “Hopewell News” – from the WWII Homefront

When the Honor Roll was first created, there was considerable discussion about whether to include only Hopewell Borough residents, or beyond. The final decision was to include only borough residents, since it was difficult to know where to draw the line, and Hopewell Township had plans to “set up a similar Honor Roll at Hart’s Corner exclusively for Hopewell Township residents.”

Aston reports that in total Hopewell Borough provided more than 200 men and women for the Armed Forces, and provides a list of 206 names in his book, with four who had died in service. He also provides a second list of 140 more people who lived nearby, with three who had died in service. This included people from areas such as Stoutsburg, Mount Rose, Rosedale, Marshall’s Corner, and Wertsville – those who “lived adjacent to Hopewell when they entered military service, or had made the town their home comparatively recent before entering the armed forces, or had definite connections with the town in some manner, or knew “Hopewell, New Jersey,” as their mail address.”

By the end of 1944, over 100 Hopewell people were serving overseas: “When a community of the size of Hopewell, whose population in 1940 was 1,678 (and the U. S. Census usually isn’t kidding) has about one hundred residents who are scattered all over the globe, it’s highly significant.”

Hopewell Boro Honor Roll Dedication with Service Flag, 1943 [RMA]

Pennington WW II Honor Roll, 1945 [Penn Profile]

The Pennington Honor Roll is discussed and pictured in Margaret J. O’Connell’s 1966 book, Pennington Profile. O’Connell reports that the Pennington Honor Roll named 205 who served in the military, with seven who were killed. The book also has lists of both the World War I and World War II Honor Rolls.

See post and full digital edition of Pennington Profile – Digital Edition

Honor Roll & Service Flag Dedication – 1943

The dedication ceremony for the Hopewell Honor Roll and Service Flag was held on Sunday afternoon, May 16, 1943, which was also “I Am An American Day.” They were installed next to the National Bank Building, on East Broad at the corner of North Greenwood.

Hopewell Boro Honor Roll Dedication [HH 5/12/1943]

Hopewell Boro Honor Roll – 1943 Dedication Band

The dedication was attended by several hundred people. “Most everybody in town and from nearby appeared to be there. Traffic was halted on Broad Street and the crowd stood on the sidewalks and from curb to curb.” The Princeton High School Band performed, and the singing of “America” was lead by the children of the Hopewell elementary school.

Hopewell Boro Service Flag – 1943 Dedication

The Honor Roll was presented by the mayor and borough council, and the Service Flag was presented by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Hopewell Fire Department. They were unveiled by Rena Van Nest, then Hopewell’s only Gold Star Mother, who had lost her son Irwin a few months earlier.

At that time, the Honor Roll was “about four by six feet, painted white with the names in white on a black background, making them quite easy to read.” It originally had ninety-one names, “from A to Z (that is, from Ira B. Allen to Earl H. Zirkler,”

The Borough Service Flag was “eight by twelve feet, with blue stars on the white field, surrounded, of course, by red. It is suspended from a pipe framework that looks like a glorified hoop from a lawn croquet set. There’s a gold star for Irvin D. Van Nest, Jr., who lost his life in North Africa.”

This original Service Flag appears to have some 100 stars.

See post on Irvin Van Nest – Memorial Day – Hopewell’s First Fatality in WW II

Dedication Video – 1943

Thanks to Rich Anderson, we actually have a short video clip of the 1943 dedication event.

The video starts across the street from the National Bank building, panning over the crowd with the Honor Roll and Service Flag on the right.

It then pans over the band performing at the ceremony, showing Honor Roll and the side of the building.

The final scene shows the band with the Honor Roll behind, and then pans up to show the full Service Flag.

See 1943 – Honor Roll & Service Flag Dedication video on YouTube

Improvements – 1945

By 1944 the Hopewell Service Flag was “tattered and torn,” and the Honor Roll needed to be enlarged, “as new additions to the list are overcrowding it.”

So in early 1945 the Honor Roll “sprouted wings” with the addition of new side panels, and a new Service Flag was suspended from the iron-pipe framework above. The the entire board was re-painted, along with the list of names, grouped in alphabetical order.

Flagstone also was placed in front of the Honor Roll, “improving the general appearance and removing a “raw” spot in the grass caused by the frequent visitors who paused to inspect the list of names.”

The photograph of this extended Honor Roll from Ashton’s book includes some 197 names.

Memorial Plaque at Borough Hall – 1951

After the war, the Hopewell Honor Roll remained at its site on East Broad at North Greenwood. It was an important part of the annual Memorial Day Parade, as the marchers would stop to pay respects as they neared the end of the parade.

Hopewell Borough Veterans Plaque, HFD 2025

In 1951, the borough worked with the Memorial Day Association to honor veterans with a bronze plaque, mounted on a large stone at the then Hopewell Borough Hall at South Greenwood and Columbia (now the firehouse).

The memorial stone and plaque are still in place, although the building is now the Hopewell Fire Department. The plaque reads:

Dedicated in grateful appreciation to the men and women of the borough of Hopewell who served in the armed forces of America so that peace, justice, freedom, and democracy might not perish from the Earth.
Erected by Hopewell Memorial Day Association / 1950.

See post on The Confusing Hopewell Firehouse (and Boro Hall and High School)

The Honor Roll then was given to the American Legion Post to install at its new building on Mercer Street.

See post on Mercer Street – Legion Hall and Stonecutting

Honor Roll as Parade Float – to 1990s

Honor Roll in Memorial Day Parade, c.1959 [Peter Gantz]

At this point, we lose track of the Honor Roll, as it then starts to appear in photos as a float in the Memorial Day Parade.

The c.1959 photo shows a blurry Honor Roll on a float in front of the Old School Baptist Church graveyard.

The Hopewell Museum also has a collection of photos of the Museum float in the 1992 Memorial Day Parade, with the Honor Roll (some 50 years after the U.S entered WW II after Pearl Harbor in December 1941). There are photos of the Honor Roll being installed securely on the back of the truck, and of the float decorated with flags and bunting, with a sign “Honoring Those Who Served in World War II,” and staffed by several service members in uniform. An accompanying newspaper article with photo reports that the float was the winner in the parade’s Hopewell Senior Float division.

The 1992 Museum photo collection also has a photo of the Honor Roll apparently installed outside the Museum building, but that is the last known sighting of it.

So where are these memorials now? Please contact us if you have more information, photos, or other materials about these or other honor roll / service flag recognition for local veterans.

Thanks to the contributors of the materials that helped to inform and illustrate this project (as credited in the image captions).