On the evening of May 30, 1946, as many as 75,000 parade-goers jammed downtown Toledo to take in the city’s Memorial Day parade.
As the first peacetime Memorial Day since the outbreak of World War II five years earlier, the parade was a somber affair featuring an estimated 7,000 participants — a large number of them young war veterans — making this the largest such procession since the end of WWI, the Memorial Day parade’s Grand Marshal Benn Miner told The Blade.
Fortunately for all concerned, the weather cooperated: The parade was treated to sunny skies and pleasant temperatures.
Beginning promptly at 7 p.m., the 90-minute procession, which included a five-minute salute to those who gave all during war followed by a one-minute silent prayer, worked its way east on Jefferson Avenue from 13th Street, to St. Clair Street, to Jackson Street, to Madison Avenue, back to 13th Street.
In addition to the large numbers of onlookers and participants, the 1946 Memorial Day parade is notable for who wasn’t there: Civil War veterans.
As The Blade noted in its next-day coverage of the Memorial Day parade, “Absent this year for the first time was a veteran of the Civil War. It was as an annual tribute to the fallen comrades of this rapidly disappearing group that Memorial Day came into being before the turn of the century.”
The parade also featured six Red Cross Floats, five of which were on Jeeps, which were to remind “the throngs of spectators of their duty to help feed the starving peoples of the world,” particularly as post-war famine ravaged Europe.
A Blade photographer captured the moment one of those floats went by. A Red Cross truck with an open bed featuring a nuclear family sitting at a dinner table, with one chair occupied by a skeleton. The large sign above them reads: “Remember The Uninvited Guest At Your Table.”
Go to thebladevault.com/memories to purchase more historical photos taken by our award-winning staff of photographers, past and present, or to purchase combinations of stories and photos.
First Published May 25, 2020, 11:30 a.m.
