Legion, Elks Remember Veterans at Wayside Cross

Bob Bailey approached the Wayside Cross in Towson and walked slowly around it.

"Looking for buddies," he said, as he noted that all the Baltimore County residents whose names are etched into it were killed in the first World War.

Bailey, a Sparks resident who served as a combat engineer in Vietnam from 1970 to 1971, plans to visit a buddy—his father, a World War II veteran—Monday at his resting place at Garrison Forest Veterans Cemetery.

Bailey was one of dozens of veterans, families and local officials drawn to the cross on York Road for Towson's annual Memorial Day observance hosted by the and Towson Elks.

"I think people now are starting to become real aware of what it means to be an American and how fortunate we are," said David Pardoe, an American Legion and Elks member and one of the first to arrive for the Sunday afternoon ceremony.

The Wayside Cross was built by the American Legion in 1921 near what is now the Towson roundabout and the Recher Theater.

"It is a symbol of permanence, a symbol of values that hold steadfast and true over decades," said County Councilman David Marks.

Following the ceremony at the Wayside Cross, the pipe band led visitors down York Road and to a wreath-laying at a memorial for Vietnam veterans outside the historic courthouse.

Mike Lawlor, a Vietnam veteran and Towson attorney working with Marks to , spoke at that ceremony and said he expects a nonprofit established for the effort to begin fundraising in September.

"I don't think we'll have a particularly difficult time, because we haven't begun raising money and I already have $10,000 in the bank," he quipped.

The memorial, to be built on the southeast corner of the historic courthouse grounds, will be designed by retired Baltimore County landscape architect Avery Harden.