Another plaque and fieldstone remembrance
World Wars Memorial
Main St at Ovid St
Elsie, Clinton County
When the sons and daughters of Elsie went to serve in the World Wars this was still a typical farming community of central Michigan. Elsie and Ovid were both substantial communities and their sphere of friends, relatives, and commerce reached out to Bannister, Ola Corners, Northstar, Ashley, Juddville, Shepherdsville and many other hamlets of the area - several of which no longer exist today.
The railroad was their lifeline to that greater world outside of their agricultural environment. The railroad tracks lie unused, or even missing, today. Farming is no longer the mainstay industry and, for the most part, the area is considered more suburban than rural now that it is within reasonable commuting distance to much larger cities. The recruits inducted from here today live a much different life than those this tablet honors.
But that doesn't make their service less significant or less honorable. Just different. They don't eat hardtack, C rations or K rations. They don't fire a bolt action rife or even spit shine their combat boots. But today's veterans still share that same pride of service that bonded those of two and three generations previous. They still take the same Oath of Enlistment that pledges them to protect America "from all enemies, foreign and domestic."
