This coming Memorial Day weekend, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 25, the Vashon Senior Center will host a ceremony to rededicate the meticulously restored WWII Memorial Garden.

The Memorial Garden was built behind what was once the Vashon Memorial Library — now the site of the Senior Center. Augustus Bacchus almost singlehandedly built the Memorial Garden to remember his two sons Thomas and Lad, who were killed two months apart during World War II. But the Memorial Garden has been neglected for decades, according to Leslie Minch, board president of the Senior Center.

The Center has been working for the past year to restore the garden and will host activities on Memorial Day weekend to rededicate the memorial and open the garden as a reflective, community gathering place. Veterans and their families, islanders, and Senior Center members are encouraged to attend.

There are five other memorials on the island recognizing Vashon veterans who gave their lives in the service of our country.

• At the base of the Ober Park flagpole is a small plaque commemorating the thirteen young men from Vashon killed in World War II.

• The Vashon Cemetery Memorial Monument, unveiled on Memorial Day in 1921, now recognizes veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, The Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. It also commemorates the Unknown Dead.

• Agren Memorial Park is named in honor of Lieutenant Harold E. Agren, a 1932 graduate of Vashon High School. He fought the Japanese invasion of the Philippines at Corregidor and died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp at Cabanatuan.

• The Vashon Vietnam Memorial located in Ober Park recognizes the twelve Vashon young men killed in the Vietnam War.

• The Robert Bennedsen Visitor’s Memorial Bench at Vashon High School, a larger granite boulder and bronze plaque, recognizes Robert’s service to his country and his death in the Afghanistan War.

This Memorial Day, take time to visit the six veteran memorials on the island, attend the Memorial Day service at the Vashon Cemetery, join the Sunday rededication at the Senior Center, and help us all recognize the sacrifice these veterans made to ensure our American freedom and democracy.

Bruce Haulman is an island historian. Mike Mattingly is the commander of the Vashon Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2826.