A World War II veteran honors those whose names appear on the WWII obelisk that is part of Dearborn’s War Memorial. A new website offers details of all the 347 people who lost their lives in service to the United States.
Memorial Project aims to tell the stories of those who lost their lives in service of country
DEARBORN – Dearborn and its residents continue to honor the sacrifices made by its military members in service of the United States.
Local author Lisa Lark wanted to ensure that we knew not only the names of the service members, but also their stories. The Dearborn Memorial Project, a website created by Lark, seeks to further immortalize the 347 Dearborn residents who lost their lives in service to our country.
“I want them to be seen as people, not just someone who died in war,” Lark said. “It’s much more fascinating to know who they were before they entered the military.”
Lark said she was inspired to create the website because she realized there wasn’t a central location where one could find information about the 347 people named on the Dearborn War Memorial, located in front of Henry Ford Centennial Library.
“There wasn’t one resource, either online or in person, for people who wanted to learn more,” she said. “I attempted to find out as much information as I could about these people.”
To do this, Lark had to pore through several archives and collections.
“My first source was the collection at the Henry Ford Centennial Library,” she said. “I know their date of death, so I use that as a starting point for my research.”
She would then look through the archives and read entire newspapers searching for any mention of the service members to include on the website.
She also used sites like Ancestry, military records website Fold3, Newspapers.com and the United States National Archives. Her research also included looking through old high school yearbooks to potentially locate any photos.
“From there, I created a narrative for each person,” Lark said. “Where they went to school, their hobbies and activities, and information about their families.
Visitors to the website can search by conflict and view information about each of the 347 people, including their birth and death date; what branch of the military they served in; their rank; and newspaper clippings and photos.
Lark’s hope is that the website, in addition to providing residents with more information about local history, may be used as a resource in schools as a way to teach “our country’s history using personal and community-oriented examples.”
She also hopes to eventually add a section onto the website to assist users who may be visiting military cemeteries such as Arlington Cemetery or the World War II cemeteries around the world to look up Dearborn soldiers who were buried there, and be able to visit their graves.
“It makes it more relatable,” Lark said, adding that “it helps to advance their memory into a new generation.”
Lark is the author of “All They Left Behind: Legacies of the Men and Women on the Wall” and “There and Back: The Vietnam War through the Eyes of Those Who Lived It.”
She has received a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Hometown Heroes Award and the 2011 Michigan American Legion Teacher of the Year Award for her work honoring those who have lost their lives in service to the United States.
Lark is also working on a new book to accompany the website called “Gone Too Soon: Dearborn Remembers Its Fallen Heroes.” The book will include brief biographies of each of the 347 soldiers, as well as photos, letters and remembrances from family and friends.
Proceeds from the book will be used to create new memorials, new educational resources, or to repair existing memorials or grave markers. The book is available for preorder at https://mtpublishing.com.
“We’re always looking to add more layers to these stories,” Lark said.
For more information or to share photos or memories of Dearborn’s fallen, go to https://dearbornmemorialproject.com.