05/26/2026
*Memorial Day Address – American Legion Post, Bainbridge, Ohio* as always We thank you so much Bridget, because you sing our anthem so perfectly
Fellow Legionnaires, honored guests, families of the fallen, and neighbors:
We gather today in Bainbridge, a town founded by soldiers, named for a naval hero, and forever marked by the cost of freedom.
In 1805, Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Nathaniel Massie laid out this town. He knew what liberty cost because he fought for it. In 1817, our township took the name of Commodore William Bainbridge, a hero of the War of 1812. From our first days, this ground was shaped by men who answered the call.
Ohio’s sacrifice did not end there. During the Civil War, 310,654 Ohioans served the Union. It is estimated that nearly 60 percent of men over 15 ultimately served in the civil war Of those, 35,475 never came home. One of them rests right here, near what is now Pike Lake State Park.
In 1864, Auselein Reihle of Paxton Township buried an unknown Union soldier on her family farm. She had already lost her husband and son to that war. Yet when a wounded, delirious soldier staggered two miles to her door, she nursed him until he died. With no name, no family to claim him, she gave him what she could: a place in this soil. In 1942, the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic placed a stone marker there, so we would not forget.
That soldier had no rank we know, no hometown we can visit. But he had Bainbridge. And Bainbridge claimed him.
Memorial Day is not about victory parades. It is about Auselein Reihle digging a grave for a stranger. It is about 35,475 Ohioans who, like that unknown soldier, traded their future for ours. It is about the promise we make each year: that their names, known or unknown, will be spoken here.
Colonel Massie and Commodore Bainbridge gave us this town. David McConoughey, a War of 1812 veteran, built one of its first cabins in 1811. Generation after generation, Bainbridge men and women have stood up when the nation called. Some came home. Some, like the boy at Pike Lake.
James Abernathy Jr kia ww11
Robert D Caplinger Kia World War II
Robert Bray. Kia. Korean war
Master sergeant Brad Clemens Kia operation Iraqi freedom
Gavin Coburn Kia operation Iraqi freedom are still with us in spirit
So today, look around. This community exists because they do not. Our children play on streets platted by a Revolutionary War officer. We fish and hike on land where a farm wife buried a soldier she could not save. That is the debt we honor.
To all of you who have family buried here. Your loved one’s sacrifice is not a chapter in a history book to us. It is personal. It is local. It is Bainbridge.
We remember them. We speak their names. And we pledge to live worthy of the freedom they purchased.
God bless our fallen, God bless Bainbridge, and God bless the United States of America
