Carol Hart Memorialized Pine Plains Veterans at Evergreen Cemetery
There are at least 600 veterans buried in Evergreen Cemetery on North Main Street, including several who fought in the American Revolution. One Pine Plains woman has assumed the responsibility of memorializing those soldiers by putting wreaths on their graves every December.
Carol Hart is a lifelong Pine Plains resident, a dedicated Presbyterian Church volunteer, and an active participant in Project Linus, which provides handmade blankets to children in need, and the Gary Sinise Foundation Snowball Express, which serves families of fallen veterans. She is retired from a career in accounting and budget analysis. Although never in the military herself, she comes from a military family: her father, aunt, uncle, and son were all veterans, and now her grandson is in the Army.
Hart’s son David was a career soldier in the Army who died unexpectedly at age 42 of a heart attack in 2015. In November 2019, Hart decided that laying a wreath on his grave in Evergreen Cemetery at holiday time would be one way to honor his memory.
In pursuit of this, she came across Wreaths Across America, a nonprofit organization based in Maine. Founded in 1992 to expand the annual wreath-placing ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, it says it now accounts for 2.4 million wreaths laid on veterans’ graves annually by volunteers across the United States.
Hart embraced the mission and charity of WAA, and volunteered to be its local coordinator. She drew on her lifelong Pine Plains contacts, coordinated with the local American Legion and Veterans of Foreign War posts, got the cooperation of Evergreen Cemetery, and obtained donations from all over Pine Plains. In 2020, she arranged for 93 wreaths to be placed at the cemetery.
She has since expanded her efforts, conducting fundraising and recruiting volunteers, and last year she had 430 wreaths sponsored.
This year, she is even more ambitious. She now has 30 volunteers to help her, and, with the help of the American Legion post and Tower Pizza, held a successful fundraising dinner last month.
Success has brought logistical challenges: locating all the gravesites, organizing the wreath-placement ceremony complete with music, securing volunteers and parking, contacting families of veterans to participate in laying the wreaths, and even storing the wreaths beforehand has grown into almost a full-time occupation.
The ceremony this year is scheduled for Dec. 17, during which Hart hopes to place more than 600 wreaths. She asks that donations be made by contacting her at carolhart131@aol.com, or calling 518-398-7056, and adds that, “for all we do, we can always do a little bit more.”