L.Z. Rainelle and West Virginia Gold Star Families have partnered together to create a living memorial in remembrance of fallen military service members at a farm near Rainelle.
Located on Tincher Road, off of Sims Mountain Road, the living memorial consists of 55 apple trees honoring fallen soldiers from all 55 West Virginia Counties.
On Wednesday, Sept. 14, students from the Greenbrier West High School FFA program arrived at the site to plant the trees.
The planting of the living memorial as also attended by several Gold Star Families from across the state who were there to help plant the trees in honor of their loved ones.
Shirley White, of Charleston, first vice president of West Virginia Gold Star Mothers, was there to help with the planting and honor her two sons, Army SSG Robert F. White and CPL Andrew R. White.
White has participated in plantings of living memorials across West Virginia.
She said there have been living memorials planted at Canaan Valley, Beach Fork, Burlington, and Middlebourne. Upcoming living memorial orchards are set to be placed at Summersville in October and in Twin Falls in the spring.
White expressed her appreciation for the living memorials, stating, “other memorials out there, they’re granite, they’re stone. They’re permanent, but they’re just ‘there.’
“We want our children to be remembered, she said, and “we want to put something into the community and give back, and that’s what happens when eventually the harvest comes through.
“And then the third thing is education. We want our children to know what sacrifice goes with their freedoms,” she said.
The educational portion of the memorial was apparent on Wednesday morning as Bruce Murphy, special programs coordinator with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, gathered the Greenbrier West students around the first tree to be planted and gave them instructions.
The students had already spent the early morning cutting and bending wire for cages to go around each tree after it went into the ground.
“If these trees are going to survive,” Murphy said to the students, “one of the very crucial things is how they get planted.”
Murphy went on to quiz the students on how far below the graft the tree goes into the ground, where each variety of apple tree would go where according to the map he’d given them, and showed them how to measure the right amount of potting soil, fertilizer, and mulch to add.
L.Z. Rainelle co-chair Emma Michelinie, who has spent a great deal of time with Gold Star families from around the state, said of White and her deceased sons, “These soldiers that go out and protect us; they have to be called by God. That’s just how I feel. So, I looked at Shirley last week, and I said, ‘by this happening, and these trees, and what we’re doing here, does that help the pain at all?’
“We were straight eye to eye, and she said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘that’s all I need to hear,’” said Michelinie.
“It is very therapeutic, it really is,” White responded, looking at the young people planting trees across the field, “to know our children will be remembered.”
L.Z. Rainelle and the Gold Star Mothers of West Virginia invite everyone to the living memorial tree dedication on Saturday, Sept. 17, at 2 p.m. Take Sims Road from Rt. 20 S in Rainelle to 3290 Tincher Road. Call 304-542-0673 or 304-222-5247, or email wvgsm2012@gmail.com, to RSVP or for more information.
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