A parade and ceremony on Memorial Day hosted by the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department remembered, revered, and celebrated the lives and service of those who died in war.

The morning festivities were highlighted by the moving, little-known stories of three veterans, all who hailed from Lewisboro’s Golden’s Bridge hamlet and two with connections to the GBFD, shared with the throng of spectators and participants who turned out for the annual event, which began with a parade step-off from Brady Farm Rd. that proceeded along Rt. 138 and culminated at the Golden’s Bridge Firehouse.

The parade line of march was led by the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department Color Guard of Lt. Saurabh Mehta and firefighters Greg Ferrigno and Alec Fisher, followed by Grand Marshal Charlie Green – a U.S. Army veteran, longtime hamlet resident, and longest tenured GBFD firefighter (65 years) – and a contingent of firefighters in their dress uniform.

A contingent of local officials – among them Lewisboro Town Supervisor Tony Goncalves, Deputy Supervisor Mary Shah, and Board Members Andrea Rendo and Richard Sklarin – along with local families of Golden’s Bridge, Somers and North Salem, including Girl Scout Troop #2497 and dozens of youngsters riding bicycles and scooters adorned with American flags and patriotic colors – filled out the parade route.

Golden’s Bridge fire trucks and Lewisboro Volunteer Ambulance Corps ambulances took up the rear of the parade, with honorary GBFD member Ben Foglio, the Golden’s Bridge youngster who has the rare condition, Salla Disease, riding in the lead engine with his family.

The memorial ceremony featured a number of speakers with various roles: welcoming remarks from 30-year GBFD member, event chair and Fire Commissioner Joseph Simoncini; invocations offered by Rabbi Arik Wolf of Chabad of Bedford and GBFD chaplain Father Jude Aguwa of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Somers; Lewisboro Veterans Advisory Committee chairman John Lemke; Mark Vibert, a member of advisory committee who researched and prepared the presentations on the three Golden’s Bridge residents who died in World War II, and Goncalves, the town supervisor.

The beautiful voices of sisters Nalaia and Nalani Nosworthy, 10th and 9th grade students, respectively, and members of the acapella group, The Notables, at John Jay High School, lifted everyone’s patriotic spirit with their stirring performance of the National Anthem. Tom Gossett, a lifetime Lewisboro resident and proprietor of Gossett Brothers Nursery in South Salem, played an emotional rendition of taps with his bugle. Thomas Beneventano, the GBFD’s Captain of the Fire Police, performed the flag ceremony, lowering the American flag to half-staff while the more than 100-year-old fire bell tolled in the background.

One of the annual ceremony’s traditions is reading the 76 Golden’s Bridge residents who served in World War I and World War II whose names are engraved on the bronze plaques of the American Legion Monument situated near the front entrance of the firehouse. The names were read this year by Golden’s Bridge Fire Chief Albert Melillo, Beneventano and Simoncini.

But the highlight of the May 26 Memorial Day ceremony was presentations that put faces and stories to the three of the 76 names who perished in the war: Ronald K. Isgate, Norman B. Slote, and John B. Winter, Jr. As the presentations were being made by Fire Commissioner and GBFD ex-Fire Chief Robert Melillo, GBFD ex-Fire Chief Dennis Delborgo, and GBFD Vice President Steven Mines, Vibert simultaneously and dramatically uncovered an enlarged image of each veteran that rested on easels situated behind empty chairs, signifying the lives lost who couldn’t be at the event.

Isgate, a Private with the 26th Infantry Regiment 1st Army Division, came to the U.S. from England with relatives and grew up in a family in the equine industry, working as a stable hand and racing his horses at Belmont and Aqueduct racetracks. He lived in Golden’s Bridge with an uncle before later settling in White Plains with his new bride. In March 1944, he entered the military through the local Golden’s Bridge draft board. Isgate became a naturalized citizen during his training and earned the first of two Purple Hearts after suffering a serious shrapnel wound. He earned the second honor posthumously when he was mortally wounded on Jan. 29, 1945 at the age of 35. He is buried in the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium with 8,000 other American GIs who died in Europe.

Slote, a Lieutenant with the 208th Coast Artillery Regiment, arrived in Golden’s Bridge from Russia in the 1930s with his family. His father, a pharmacist, ran the local drugstore and was a member of the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department. Back then, the pharmacy and firehouse were located on Rt. 22 north of the shopping center. A graduate of Katonah High School, Slote was a member of an ROTC honors program while at the University of Alabama, where he earned a degree in chemistry and double minored in zoology and French. Stationed in Papua New Guinea, Slote went to Australia for training in chemical warfare. On his way back to New Guinea, the plane crash-landed in the ocean, where 13 of the 31 onboard, including Slote, age 23, perished. The Coral Sea off Port Moresby is his final resting place.

Winter, Jr., a Sergeant in the 464th Medical Collecting Company in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, lived with his family on Old Bedford Rd. in Golden’s Bridge. His father served as the GBFD’s 8th Fire Chief in 1923, which inspired him to join the department in 1937. A Katonah H.S. graduate (he and Slote were best friends and hunting buddies), Winter joined the Army in 1941. In 1944, his unit was in the eastern Belgian town of Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge. He voluntarily left the shelter of a building amidst intense shelling to render medical attention to numerous wounded civilians. A shell exploded close by and he was killed just three days shy of his 26th birthday. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, and on Oct. 19, 1945, bestowed the title of Honorary Chief of the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department. The John B. Winter, Jr. American Legion Post #1734 was created in his honor by local war veterans in 1948.

The mid-morning festivities concluded with the placement of ceremonial wreaths on either side of the American Legion Monument by Lemke, Vibert, Green, and Albert Melillo. Spectators and participants enjoyed breakfast refreshments of fruit, bagels, doughnuts, muffins, cupcakes and festive cookies, and coffee and juice.

“We honored in a reverent and dignified way those who gave their lives in service to their country. The Golden’s Bridge Fire District and Fire Department are privileged to be the caretakers of the American Legion Monument, and are grateful to everyone who joined us as participants and spectators to remember those who made the supreme sacrifice,” said Simoncini