October 9, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 11 Area Gold Star Mothers honored at local ceremony The solemn occasion of Gold Star Mother’s Day was recently observed at Van Neste Park, Ridgewood. This annual event pays tribute to the mothers of those military service members who have given the ulti- mate sacrifice in the service of the United States. An empty pair of combat boots pays tribute to fallen soldiers at the ceremony. People from Ridgewood, Ho-Ho-Kus, Saddle River, Wyckoff, and other local communities attended the ceremony coor- dinated and conducted by the Ridgewood Gold Star Mother’s Day Committee. In the aftermath of World War I, Wash- ington, D.C. resident Grace Darling Seibold, formed Gold Star Mothers, an organization to support mothers who had lost sons and daughters to the war. Seibold’s son, First Lieutenant George Vaughn Seibold, was an aviator killed in combat over France in 1918. In 1928, the group decided to nationalize its efforts. In 1936, a joint congressional reso- lution established the last Sunday in Sep- tember as Gold Star Mother’s Day. Today, Gold Star Mothers has tens of thousands of members and hundreds of local chapters. According to Stanley Kober, former commander of VFW Post 192, the first joint, publically coordinated, local Gold Star Mother’s Day Ceremony started in 2010. At that time, the Blue Star Mothers Chapter 3 of North Jersey (each Blue Star mother has at least one son or daughter currently serv- ing in the military) asked the Ridgewood American Legion Post 53 and the Wash- ington Elm VFW Post 192 (Ridgewood- -Ho-Ho-Kus) to join in a simultaneous, multi-municipality (Ridgewood, Ho-Ho- Kus, Wyckoff, and Wanaque) ceremony commemorating the Gold Star Mothers in the North Jersey area. In 2011, Ridgewood resident Maria Bom- bace, mother of an Iraq combat Marine who is now commander of VFW Post 192 and another son currently serving in the U.S. (continued on page 29) Left: Volunteers set up luminarias. Right: A veteran plays ‘Taps’ for the crowd.