“Our Honored Dead” | Veterans preserve military souvenir program

CATAWISSA, Pa. — More than 300 faces of young men and one woman fill the stained and discolored pages of a souvenir program, a piece of history believed to have been made shortly after World War II and discovered by chance in the attic of the Catawissa Bottling Company in Columbia County.

“We happened to find this box with all these papers that my grandmother had probably put away,” said Stephen Gregorowicz. “We started digging through it and thought, well, maybe we should throw this stuff away, but then I found this book.”

The now tattered program is titled “In Memory of Our Honored Dead” and lists the names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, along with their hometown, rank and cause of death.

Gregorowicz, the plant manager, says he’s never seen anything like it before, so he wanted to put it in the right hands.

“Our (VFW) post is called Harman and Allen Post 8306 here in Catawissa. He died in England. There are men there from Danville, Berwick, Bloomsburg, Mount Carmel, Nescopeck and Shickshinny,” said Mark Schlieder, an Air Force veteran and chaplain at the post.

Schlieder worked for more than a year on redesigning the brochure, a task that gave him great pride.

“My reaction was, we need to reprint this and get it out there because there are people who want to see it.”

Just days before Memorial Day, Schlieder received the latest 100 copies of the program, giving the next generation a chance to look back and honor the sacrifices of that time.

“The younger generations must understand the sacrifice they made for our generations. And they must continue to remember and honor their sacrifice.”

Schlieder says copies of the souvenir program and the original will be available at the VFW post in Catawissa.