memorial day

In Gray, Maine, a large town just north of Portland, there is a town cemetery. Amid all the graves marking the founders and farmers and sundry Yankees, lay a Confederate soldier. He died during the second fight at Bull Run, most likely. Along with him in the long-ago battle, historians think, also died a Union soldier from Gray named Lt. Charles H. Colley. Gray sent more men and boys to the Civil War, proportionately, than any other Maine town. Over 200 went to fight, and as happened with Lt. Colley, many did not return alive.

When the Colley family heard the news that their son had fallen, they awaited the coffin containing his body to be sent back home. When it arrived, longing for one last look, they opened it and sadly discovered that it was not their son, but the man who lay inside was dressed in a Confederate uniform. There had been a mix-up.

Even more sorrowful now, the family decided that with the cost the families must bear in transporting the body, and the length of time it takes to travel, they would not send the body back, but instead inter it in the Yankee village’s cemetery.

They marked the grave thus: “Stranger. A soldier died in the late war, 1862. Erected by the Ladies of Gray.”

The Colley family decided that their son was lying somewhere they knew not, and hoped that a southern mother wold take care of him just as they would do for the southern stranger now a permanent part of the northern town.

Each Memorial Day, the Ladies lay flowers by his grave, along with an American flag. Beginning in 1956, a confederate flag was erected at his grave. “They were sent here by A. MacGregor Ayer of Fairfax, Va., and Mabur Jones of Columbia, S.C. who read about the soldier stranger in a news dispatch last year.” Each Memorial Day, the Stranger’s grave receives as much careful attention as do the graves of the northern veterans.

The 15th Alabama Regiment Company G re-enactors are stationed in central Maine, and annually they arrive at Gray to perform honors for the fallen soldier at the Gray Memorial Day ceremony.

Jeanne Adams photo

Elizabeth Prata photo

Source, screen grab from Summer Paradis video of Stranger

Bangor Daily News, May 3, 1977

Discover Maine Magazine, Vol 8, Iss. 9, 2012

I respect those who served. Thank you!

Thank you to the men and women who served with honor. Since the Revolutionary War, you have set aside your life, and in some cases, given your life, to serve a greater cause with honor. The liberties I enjoy are attributable to you. Thank you.

Thank you to my grandfather, (front row, 2nd from right) who served in the the First World War in the Royal Leicestershire Regiment. This regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, with a history going back to 1688. It saw service for three centuries, and during WWI, the regiment increased from five to nineteen battalions which served in France and Flanders, Mesopotamia and Palestine. The regiment lost approximately 6,000 dead in the four years of war.

Thank you to Americo V. Bernardoni, (Great Uncle) who served in WWII from enlistment date of June 1942 through to the end of the war, plus 6 months. He was a Private in the Branch Immaterial Warrant Officers, USA.

Thank you to John Prata, (father) who served in the US Navy in the 1950s. He graduated from Officers Candidate School in Newport RI and Athens Supply Corps school in Georgia. He served as Ship’s Bursar, and in the theater of the Pacific at Bikini. He was on the ships that were testing Hydrogen bombs.

Thank you to Raymond Tortolani, (uncle) who also graduated from Newport’s OCS and served in the US Navy.

Thank you to William Keogh, (uncle) who served in the United States Coast Guard.

Though these family members did not lose their life to war, (though many of my father’s shipmates came down with various cancers due to the radiation fallout from the bombs), I thank you for serving our nation.

Category: memorial day

The Stranger of Gray, Maine

Memorial Day Thanks