Memorial Day Revisited, a Fitting Return by Mary K. Morgan Java Journal Online: "No soldier who sacrificed his life for his country should be forgotten, nor should relics of that service be abandoned by those he served. That’s just why the public was so outraged last year when the news broke that members of the Rollo-Calcaterra American Legion Post, Number 15 discovered a displaced set of WW I bronze memorial discs that that had been relegated to a forgotten storage space in the Soldier’s Memorial building. Originally, the cast bronze tributes to St. Louis soldiers who had lost their lives in WW I proudly lined the median of Kingshighway between Penrose Place and what was then named Easton Avenue. When the street was reconfigured in the 1980s, the monuments were never replaced.
...The Gold Star Mothers originally commissioned the casting of the markers and had them placed in the Kingshighway median as a memorial to their fallen sons. During WW I, all mothers of soldiers displayed “Service” flags with blue stars in the windows of their homes, one for each son in service to his country. Many wore enameled blue star lapel pins. And when one of the mothers lost a son in the war, the blue star was replaced with a gold star, as a symbol of their loss. "
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