Gary Lippincott’s memories of the Yardville-Groveville Memorial Day Parade are reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting. The streets filled with families and children playing on front lawns. Chairs decorated in red, white and blue lined up along the curbs as far as the eye can see. Everyone cheering and clapping for the firefighters, police officers and military veterans as they walk through town. Most importantly, the entire community together as one.
“It always came back to the fact that everybody came together for this parade,” Lippincott said. “Everybody spoke to their neighbor and wondered from neighbor’s house to neighbor’s house talking.”
The Yardville-Groveville Memorial Day Parade has been a tradition in town for as long as residents can remember. In fact, many local historians believe it is the second oldest Memorial Day Parade in the nation. Records show the first Yardville-Groveville Memorial Day Parade was held in 1870. The only parade, on record, to start before the Yardville-Groveville parade was in Ironton, Ohio, which began two years earlier.
The 147th running of the parade will begin 8:30 a.m. May 30. It starts at the intersection of South Broad Street and Sunnybrae Boulevard, before continuing down Church Street and ending at Main Street in Groveville.
Former parade committee chairman Samuel Steward III wrote a book detailing the history of the parade. “Memorial Day Through the Years: A History of the Yardville-Groveville Memorial Day Parade” documents everything from the flag bearers to parade marshalls.
Steward wrote that residents in Yardville and Groveville would gather together to celebrate Memorial Day, and in 1870, the two towns decided to host a parade before the other festivities began. The second-ever Memorial Day parade in American was born.
As the years went on, more traditions were incorporated into the parade, Steward wrote. In the days leading up to Memorial Day, children would gather flowers to place on soldiers’ graves. Flags were also placed at each grave, which is a tradition many veterans’ organizations still participate in today.
In the early years of the parade, it was led by the Odd Fellows Lodge of Yardville. Civil War veterans would march in the parade and the Imperial Band of Groveville performed along the way. It wasn’t until after World War I when the American Legion Post No. 31 of Yardville formed a drum and bugle corps and marched with their unit, becoming just the second band in the parade.
More bands were added throughout the years, including marching bands from Hamilton’s three high schools, and more veterans, police officers and firefighters joined the route, but overall the parade organizers have kept the event true to it’s roots.
“We try to keep it very simple and themed toward the Memorial Day holiday rather than have a lot of different festival bands,” parade committee chairman Rob Bice said, adding that the focus of the parade is always about honoring veterans and remembering their sacrifice.
For the last 146 years, the parade has ended with a ceremony at Groveville Cemetery. A local pastor gives an invocation, the national anthem is played and military groups fire off the 21 gun salute and play taps to pay their respects to the veterans.
The parade became something veterans looked forward to each year. Steward wrote that Memorial Day was a very special day for his family. His father, Samuel Steward Jr., was a World War I veteran and would wear his old uniform, complete with his hat and medals, as he marched in the parade.
As a boy, Steward recalled being impressed with the veteran carrying the American flag to lead each parade.
“He would always be a hundred feet or so in front of the next unit, dressed in his knickers and leg wrappings and proudly wearing his medals,” he wrote. “He reminded me of a lone eagle standing so straight and proud and looking straight ahead as he marched forward with the American flag waving in the breeze.”
Steward wrote the flag bearers have a special place in parade history, none more so than lifelong Yardville residents Andrew Norcross and his son Floyd Norcross. Andrew led the parade from World War I until 1954, when Floyd—who just finished his service in the Korean War—joined him. Steward wrote that seeing father and son in their military uniforms—Andrew in his knickers and leg wrappings and Floyd in his Eisenhower jacket—was a beautiful sight he will never forget.
Since Yardville and Groveville were both close knit communities, everyone came out to watch the parade and cheer on the veterans and other participants. Whether you were a flag bearer or a child riding your bike through the route, being in the parade was a special honor in town.
Lippincott, a Groveville native, has marched in the parade all his life and fondly remembers the joy he had participating in the parade as a volunteer firefighter.
“That’s a proud time for the fire company, getting recognized as volunteers,” he said. “When you march through Yardville and Groveville the people on the sidewalks would clap for you and applaud you, and that always gave you a good feeling of pride.”
Marching in the parade brought back childhood memories for Lippincott as well. When he was about 7 or 9 years old, he would join the other neighborhood kids in decorating his bike in red, white and blue paper, flags and other accessories. The children would ride their bikes all the way to the end of the parade where a judge would give out prizes for the best decorated bike.
“You felt proud because people were looking at you,” Lippincott said. “They’d call your name and wave to you, and as a kid it was like a piece of freedom. We went all the way to Yardville from Groveville on our bikes without our parents.”
After the prizes were awarded and the ceremony at Groveville Cemetery ended, the festivities to celebrate American heroes continued with America’s pastime. A baseball tournament would be held between the Yardville Civic Club, Yardville First Aid Squad, Groveville Fire Company and VFW Post No. 491. The winners of the afternoon games would go onto play each other under the lights at Switlik Park, topping off the night.
As the organizations disbanded, the baseball tournament ended. No one knows why children started riding their bicycles in the parade, but that tradition eventually fell to the wayside, too. In recent years, attendance has also started to taper off, with people either attending the parade in Hamilton Square, opting to go down the Shore or just stay home.
“I’ve seen over the years the attendance has gotten less and less,” Lippincott said. “Even though it has dwindled down, the parade committee keeps it going and the community has kept it going, and that means a lot to me just to see the continue.”
Bice, who is Steward’s nephew, said about roughly 10 people are currently active within the parade committee, and they are looking ahead to the future. 2020 will mark the parade’s 150-year anniversary, and Bice and the committee want to make it an extra special event.
“We are trying to get some younger folks involved because most of the committee members are elderly at this point and the whole goal is to keep the tradition going,” he said.
While the parade is no longer the spectacle it once was in Groveville, Lippincott hopes that it will grow for future generations.
“I know we have a lot of young kids that come out and really enjoy the parade, and I’d just like to see it continue for them to have the memory I have of the parade and the enjoyment,” he said. “It’s just a lot of community coming together, and there’s not much of that anymore.”
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As a boy, Gary Lippincott would decorate his bike and ride in the parade with other neighborhood children.,
