Memorial Park for Rain Day Boys planned
This year’s Rain Day has come and gone but the memory of a valiant group of Greene County soldiers known as the Rain Day Boys lingers in the memory of many.
On July 29, 1918, fifty-eight Greene County soldiers in Company K, 110th Infantry, 28th Division, fighting just outside Courmont, France, during World War I were killed in an assault on a nest of German machine gunners and artillery entrenched on a wooded hilltop. Their deaths on Rain Day of 1918 eventually led to the name they would be remembered by.
Their legacy is enshrined by a monument erected in 1932 by the Daughters of the American Revolution on Route 188 near Waynesburg across from R & M Manufacturing. However, the area is now part of an industrial park, and the monument is missing the names of some of the soldiers. Several other names on the monument are also misspelled, and the memorial is largely neglected.
To give these heroes a fitting tribute, a memorial park is tentatively scheduled to be dedicated on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, of this year on property owned by the county near the Greene County Historical Society on Rolling Meadows Road.
The planned dedication will include speakers from the military, local officials and members of the lost soldiers’ families.
Sixteen years ago, former district attorney Glenn Toothman and genealogist Candice Buchanan started to research these fallen soldiers who are just some of the 150 Greene County soldiers who served in Company K. After founding the Greene County Legacy Association to memorialize these county heroes, Toothman and Buchanan are now spearheading a fundraising campaign to create the new memorial park on county owned property located adjacent to the tennis courts.
Their effort began in January. Since then, a spaghetti dinner held at the Masonic Lodge in Waynesburg raised initial funds. On July 28, another fundraiser at the Ruff Creek home of Todd Moore attended by 150 office holders, business owners and others raised an additional $10,000.
“Right now, we are about half way to our financial goal, and I think we’ll get there by October,” said Moore, who’s assisting in the fundrasing effort and whose great uncle, Francis Moore, was killed in the infamous battle and buried at Greene Mount Cemetery near Waynesburg University.
On Oct. 28 a Cash Bash event at the Greene County Fairgrounds hopes to raise the rest of the estimated $40,000 to $45,000 needed to complete the project. Another tentative event is in the planning stages for the Mt. Morris American Legion in September.
The proposed park will have a 200-foot walkway lined by 58 trees, one for each of the fallen soldiers. Each of the trees will hold a high-tech Memory Medallion with information about the soldiers accessible by cell phone. At the end of the walkway, a six-foot monument with an eight-foot base will memorialize the Rain Day Boys. The front of the monument consists of a black granite section engraved with the image of Francis Moore dressed in his Army uniform
“His photo was the most complete and feasible for the etching process,” Moore said.
The back of the monument will have a black granite half on the left with a gray half on the right, where the names of the soldiers will be etched. The etching work will be completed by D. Moore and Son Monuments of Waynesburg.
Those who plan to visit the monument after the November dedication will be able to park in the lighted lot shared by those using the tennis courts. More information on the Rain Day Boys can be found on Facebook.com.
Those wanting more information or to donate money for the creation of the memorial park should phone 724-627-6542.