Monday, 4/29/2024 - For more than three decades, Bartlett has honored its deceased veterans with a Memorial Day Walk and Remembrance. Please come and join this commemoration on Monday, 5/27.
It begins at 10 a.m. at Bartlett Park, Oak and North Avenues, with an American Legion flag retirement ceremony. At 10:30 a.m. veterans, scouts, civic groups, bagpipers and residents line up for the walk to Bartlett Cemetery, which steps off at 11 a.m.
At the cemetery, the remembrance continues with a cannon salute and a brief program that will include a celebration of one of Bartlett's "Hometown Heroes." Working from the Bartlett History Museum archives, this year's hometown hero story will feature Elmer Hecht.
Hecht moved to Bartlett at age 12, during the Great Depression. He registered for the draft in February of 1944, while still a senior at Elgin High School. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps on May 5, 1944 and was stationed at the Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma until May 1945. This air force base was home to the 730th Air Mobility Training Squadron, which in April of that same year, earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for executing an attack on a jet fighter base in Germany. Later, he was stationed at the Enid Army Air Field in Oklahoma, where a total of 8,995 pilots completed training.
He was honorably discharged on November 2, 1945, returned to Bartlett, and in 1949, he married Mary Airhart. The couple eventually welcomed three children, Marla, Gayle, and Chad.
In 1952 he joined the Bartlett Volunteer Fire Department, and eight years later he was appointed the Hanover-Wayne Fire Protection District Chief. In 1968, he became the district’s first full time employee, again being appointed fire chief. While he held this position, some of his accomplishments included assisting with the restoration of the 1896 Howe Hand Pumper, advocating for firefighter education and enforcing new programs, as well as overseeing the build of two new fire stations in Bartlett.
Elmer retired in 1994 after serving the Bartlett community for 42 years. He passed away in 2002. Come and help the village commemorate Elmer and all of Bartlett's hometown heroes at this year's Memorial Day Walk & Remembrance.
Bartlett Police Department will be providing traffic control assistance along North Avenue between N. Eastern Avenue and Oliver Street for the Memorial Day Walk. Motorists traveling in the area of the Memorial Day Walk might experience slight traffic delays.
