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The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs’ 105-acre Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Union Grove in Racine County offers both traditional casket and cremation burials as the fourth-busiest state-run veterans cemetery in the nation.
Eric Johnson
The oft-expanded Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery at Union Grove in Racine County is set to grow again.
The Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) announced Oct. 5 that Wisconsin will receive $3,293,695 from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to expand the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, in Dover just outside Union Grove.
“Ensuring our veterans have an honorable and dignified resting place is important to commemorating their service and sacrifice,” Gov. Tony Evers said. “This grant is an important investment to ensure loved ones and future generations can continue honoring the memories of Wisconsin veterans.”
The grant will provide 3,500 columbarium niches, which hold cremated remains, as well as fund related landscaping and supporting infrastructure on approximately two acres of land. These improvements will help ensure adequate resources for future burial needs.
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“The Wisconsin veterans cemeteries provide a beautiful and dignified final resting place for those who have served and their loved ones,” said WDVA Secretary Mary Kolar in announcing the grant award. “It’s so important we continually improve and maintain these treasured places for future generations.”
Grant welcome news
The U.S Department of Veterans Affairs grant award comes as welcome news to Lee Kelley, the three-year director of the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery.
“As we continue to grow and expand here at the cemetery, we feel honored to receive that grant award,” Kelley said. “Proving burial services to families is of utmost importance to what we do here each and every day. The ability to offer a final resting place for our veterans and fallen is the mission, it’s what we strive to do each and every day — bring that closure to the grieving families of those that have served our country. It means a great deal to us. When we are awarded these projects, we are grateful for them.”
The grant award will fund a year-long columbarium development project that will see the construction of five columbarium structures at the cemetery, two of which Kelley said will be “expedited” for a May 2023 completion as final existing columbarium niches are filled.
Construction on the columbarium expansion project is slated to start at the end of this month or early November, with an anticipated completion of the five-structure columbarium by the end of 2023.
“We’re going to be short of [columbarium] space come May of next year,” Kelley said. “It’s really going to be a hand-off. We’re going to finish off one structure and jump in the brand new one.”
As burial preferences change, Kelley said there has been an increasing shift toward cremation burials, which now account for a little bit over 50% of all burials at the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, according to Kelley.
“The columbarium is a nice piece for people that they seem to choose on a more frequent basis,” he noted.
Nationally, cremation burials are now more popular than traditional casket burials, with cremation accounting for 56% of burials in 2020 versus 27% in 2000, according to Cremation Association of North America (CANA) statistics. The percentage of cremation burials is expected to reach 80% by 2040, according to projections by CANA and the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA).
The Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery averages six funerals per day with full military honors, Monday through Friday. The cemetery, 21731 Spring St. (County Hwy. C) in Dover in Racine County, conducts between 1,300-1,500 funerals annually as the fourth-busiest state veterans cemetery in the nation. To date, more than 23,000 veterans and their spouses have been interred at the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Dedicated on May 31, 1998, the cemetery has undergone multiple expansion phases since opening.
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Busy cemetery
According to Colleen Flaherty, director of communications for the Madison-based WDVA, the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery averages six funerals per day with full military honors, Monday through Friday.
The cemetery, 21731 Spring St. in Union Grove, located adjacent to the Wisconsin Veterans Home and the Southern Wisconsin Center, conducts between 1,300-1,500 funerals annually as the fourth-busiest state veterans cemetery in the nation. To date, more than 23,000 veterans and their spouses have been interred at the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery.
“The staff at the cemetery do a fantastic job,” said Colleen Flaherty, director of communications for the Madison-based WDVA. “I really love working with them. They truly do care so much about the work they do and keeping that place beautiful.”
Situated on state-owned farmland at the Southern Wisconsin Center, which serves adult clients with intellectual disabilities combined with physical or mental health disorders, the 105-acre Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery site has undergone multiple expansion phases since groundbreaking occurred for the cemetery on Memorial Day 1996.
The cemetery and its administrative building were officially dedicated on May 31, 1998. The first phase of construction included burial for casket and cremation urns and additional development occurs as needed to accommodate the needs of veterans and their families.
The cemetery, located southwest of Milwaukee in Racine County, will be undergoing several expansion projects through 2025.
Learn more
The WDVA operates three veterans memorial cemeteries located in King (Waupaca County), Spooner (Washburn County) and Union Grove (Racine County).
Veterans, spouses and children may be eligible for burial or memorialization at Wisconsin’s veterans cemeteries. For questions about burial eligibility or preregistration, visit the application portal at mywisvets.com, email at wisvets@dva.wi.gov, or call 800-WIS-VETS (947-8387).
For more information about the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery, visit https://dva.wi.gov/Pages/memorialsBurials/SWVMC.aspx.
25 Photos from the Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 Memorial Day Parade and Memorial Ceremony in Williams Bay
Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 Honor Guard and Color Guard parade on Memorial Day
Honor Guard and Color Guard members of Geneva Lake Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2373 lead the post’s 2022 Memorial Day parade down Geneva Street in downtown Williams Bay on May 30. The 10:30 a.m. parade ended at the Veterans Memorial in Edgewater Park, where the post held solemn 11 a.m. Memorial Day observances in honor of the nation’s war dead.
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Veterans American Legion Riders on parade in downtown Williams Bay on Memorial Day
Flag-waving American Legion Riders motorcyclists from Lake Geneva, Mukwonago and other surrounding communities were among the more than 20 groups participating in Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373’s May 30 Memorial Day parade through downtown Williams Bay. For more photos from the event see page D3.
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Williams Bay Fire Department Assistant Chief Paul Nicholson.greets Memorial Day parade-goers
Williams Bay Fire Department assistant chief Paul Nicholson greets parade-goers and tosses candy along Geneva Street during the Memorial Day parade through downtown Williams Bay on May 30.
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Williams Bay High School Band marches in Memorial Day parade
Members of the Williams Bay High School Band play patriotic music as they march down Geneva Street May 30 during the Memorial Day parade hosted by Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373. At the solemn Memorial Day service that followed at the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park, the band, under the direction of band teacher Nate Weirick, played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “On Wisconsin.”
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Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 Commander Ron Grabski gives keynote Memorial Day speech
With the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park as a patrotic background, Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 Commander Ron Grabski presides May 30 over solemn Memorial Day observances. Here, Grabski gives his keynote Memorial Day address. Noted Grabski, “During the year we celebrate many holidays … Memorial Day is different. It is not a celebration. It is a day of sacred remembrance of those who gave their lives so we can celebrate those days as a free nation.”
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Veterans Quilts of Valor presentation at 2022 Memorial Day ceremony at Williams Bay
Kate Franzen, left, representing Quilts of Valor, presents a patriotic quilt to retired U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Jose “Marty” Martinez during solemn Memorial Day observances May 30 at the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park in downtown Williams Bay. Martinez served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. The mission of the Quilts of Valor Foundation is to cover service members and veterans touched by war with comforting and healing patriotic Quilts of Valor.
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Williams Bay High School freshman Lacy Silverman reads “In Flanders Fields” at Veterans Memorial.JPG
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Williams Bay High School freshman Lacy Silverman reads “In Flanders Fields”
As Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 Commander Ron Grabski (right) looks on, Williams Bay High School freshman Lacy Silverman reads the World War I poem “In Flanders Field” during the post’s solemn Memorial Day observances at the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park. Silverman is the 2021 recipient of the post’s leadership award.
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The Williams Bay High School Choir performs during Memorial Day observances at Edgewater Park
The Willians Bay High School Choir, under the direction of choral teacher Jessica Miles, performed “Thank You, Soldiers” and “The Armed Forces Medley” during solemn Memorial Day observances May 30 at the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park in Williams Bay.
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Veterans Wreath at Williams Bay Veterans Memorial
Solemn May 30 Memorial Day observances by Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 included the ceremonial laying of a wreath at the Veterans Memorial at lakeside Edgewater Park in Williams Bay. The wreath was laid at the Veterans Memorial by VFW member Army Sgt. Wayne Rulin, a Korean War veteran.
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Williams Bay High School Class of 2022 senior Cole Birkett plays “Taps” on Memorial Day
Williams Bay High School Class of 2022 senior Cole Birkett played the military bugle call “Taps” at Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373’s solemn Memorial Day observance at the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park in Williams Bay. Birkett is the 2022 recipient of the post’s Gerald “Sarge” Eaton Memorial Scholarship,
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Pastor Sean Walker offers prayers at Williams Bay Memorial Day observances
Pastor Sean Walker (left) of Chapel on the Hill gave opening and closing prayers at the solemn Memorial Day ceremonies conducted by Geneva Lake VFW Post 2373 on May 30 at the Veterans Memorial at Edgewater Park in Williams Bay. Post Commander Ron Grabskl looks on at right.
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