Creating a modern-day monument for Ellis County veterans was an ongoing process over many years. Like many small towns across America, life centered on the town square and Waxahachie was no exception. As a child in the 1960’s, one resident noticed the only veterans’ memorial on the courthouse square honored those of the Civil War. From an adult’s perspective decades later, he questioned the absence of a modern-day tribute. To that effort, in the late 1980’s, he and another townsman would embark on a monument mission for 20th century veterans.
Enduring a denied request for the courthouse lawn and a ten-year search for alternatives, a solution emerged with the Waxahachie Civic Center and memorial-site acceptance on those grounds. In similar effort as their predecessors for the Civil War monument, the next three years would be devoted to raising private funds
Eventually completed and dedicated on Veterans Day in 2000, the monument displays beautiful images and inspirational words. Lovingly crafted, it pays tribute to our veterans who serve and sacrifice on our behalf in defending freedom and the way of life we all enjoy. As a country visualized by many world-wide as a beacon of hope, we are a melting pot of immigrants drawn to a dream of opportunity. Maintaining the dream involves a price.
Inscription above the center tablet: The Price of Freedom
When we mourn for such men who have died, we are wrong because we should thank God that such men were born.
Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
Their sacrifices, their pain, their selfless courage must continue to burn like an eternal flame in our memory.
Gen. Colin Powell
As I wept inside, I asked, Lord, where did we get such men? And I was reminded, if a nation is to be great, if a nation truly is to be the land of the free, that it also must be the home of the brave.
Gen. Paul X. Kelley
In memory of those that made the supreme sacrifice for our country during peacetime service.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them.
“Ode of Remembrance” from Laurence Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen” (1914)
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
You Gave All
Tonya Lynn Cross
This obelisk reflects the service emblems of the Army, Army Air Corps, Air Force, National Guard, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and the Merchant Marines.
The addition was, in fact, made possible by a contractor who contributed the concrete foundation beneath the monument. A Vietnam veteran himself, he refused to charge for a veterans’ memorial. The savings were than utilized to create the granite obelisk and bronze eagle perched on top.
Rear view of the Monument with its own compelling images and quotes
“We stand on the backs of their sacrifice. Their history is our tradition, as long as there are Americans to remember…”
This Waxahachie memorial has sparked visits and interest by others around North Texas to build something similar in tribute to their own veterans.
