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10/24/2018 08:30 AMJane Deuse Cable left active service in the United States Navy in 1971, but she is still on active duty—but this time for veterans. She is the adjutant of American Legion Post 97 in Chester.
The adjutant, she explains, does a little bit of everything.
Right now, everything is an apt description because the legion post is involved in three big projects: the re-dedication of the renovated Veteran’s Memorial in Chester on Saturday, Oct. 27 at 10:30 a.m.; a free concert of patriotic music by the Essex Corinthian Jazz Band sponsored by the legion and the historical societies of Essex, Deep River, and Chester on Sunday, Nov. 4 at 3 p.m. in Deep River Town Hall; and the Veteran’s Day Parade on Sunday, Nov. 11, stepping off at 1 p.m. from Deep River Elementary School.
At the Veterans Memorial site at the junction of Chester Main Street and Route 154, rotting wooden posts have been replaced with granite posts linked together by a chain, the flagpole has been sanded and repainted, the granite walkways have been sealed, a new electrical box was installed, and the grass around the memorial reseeded.
“Jerry didn’t want the dedication until the lawn looked right,” Jane says of Jerry LaMark, commander of the Chester American Legion Post.
The Chester post raised the money for the renovations to the memorial through its own efforts.
“This is something we did not want the town to have to pay for,” Jane says.
Some 130 people contributed to the project, not all of whom were from Chester. Jane recalls a letter from a man who wasn’t a Chester resident, but who made a significant contribution, saying that his father was a World War II veteran and the donor wanted to honor him.
“The memorial looks beautiful at night when it is lit and the flags are flying,” Jane says. “You go around to other towns in Connecticut and you realize this is a huge memorial for such a small town. A lot of people from this town served.”
Various sections of the memorial contain the names of Chester residents who have served in the military in conflicts starting with World War I.
The Nov. 4 concert, free and open to the public, began as a joint initiative by historical societies of Essex, Chester, and Deep River to mark the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. (Hostilities ended a year earlier in l9l7, but the armistice was not signed until l918.) In addition, Jane points out this year marks the 100th anniversary of women in the military. The Chester post has two women, Jane and Chester First Selectman Lauren Gister, a retired Marine Corps major.
The aim, according to Melissa Josefiak of the Essex Historical Society, was to present a program that would have wide public appeal.
“We heard the Corinthian Jazz Band did patriotic songs,” Josefiak says, explaining the decision to sponsor a concert.
But this will be a concert with something special in addition to the music. All three historical societies have solicited pictures of local residents in uniform who served in conflicts since World War I. The photographs, combined into a PowerPoint presentation, will be shown in a continuous loop during the concert. At the end, Jane adds, there will be coffee and refreshments for those who attend.
The third of the events Jane is involved in planning is the Veterans Day Parade starting at 1 p.m. on Nov. 11. This is the third time the Chester American Legion Post is sponsoring the parade, which will muster at Deep River Elementary School and march to the Deep River War Memorial.
Veterans from Chester, Deep River, and Essex will march and veterans from Westbrook, Old Saybrook, and Clinton have also been invited. In addition to the marchers, there will be local fife and drum corps and a bagpipe band from New Haven.
Jane grew up in Chester and graduated from Valley Regional High School, but after graduation, she recalls, “I’d had enough of going to school. I wanted to see the world.”
She traveled in Europe for a year.
“I think I learned more living in England and Ireland than I ever would have at school,” she says.
When she returned, she joined the Navy, serving as a radioman.
“That’s what it was, a radio man, not radio person,” she says.
When she left the service in 1971, she spent her career in technology, the last 15 years with American Express. When she retired, she knew she would return to Connecticut.
“I’d lived in a lot of hot places on both coasts—Florida, California—and I was ready to get out of the heat and get back to New England,” she says. “I used to visit friends and I knew I would end up back here.”
Jane did end up here, but she is no longer retired. She began to volunteer at Safe Futures, a domestic abuse shelter in New London, and now she is a staffer—a development administrative specialist.
In addition, she has taken on another volunteer veterans position as president of the United War Veterans Grand Army of the Republic Buckingham Memorial Association. William Buckingham, who was a mayor of Norwich in the 19th century, governor of Connecticut during the Civil War, and a United States senator, deeded his Norwich home and his collection of Civil War memorabilia on his death in 1875 to the Grand Army of the Republic, as the northern forces in the Civil War were called.
The building had long since fallen into disrepair, but now Jane is part of a small group trying, with state and private grants, to restore the structure and create a Civil War Museum.
“We’ve already got a new roof and a new furnace,” Jane says. “We’re going to do it [the restoration] one room at a time.”
Jane’s siblings also served in the military and her father, Daniel Deuse, is one of the World War II veterans whose name is engraved on the Chester War Memorial.
And the family tradition of military service is not over. Jane has two children, a son Riley who works for Amazon in Seattle, and a daughter, Melissa, who recently joined the military herself. Jane flew down to Alabama for the ceremony commissioning Melissa in the Air Force.
There is one thing, however, that distinguishes Melissa from those in her family who have served before. They were all enlisted personnel.
“She is the first one who is an officer,” Jane says.
Rededication of the Chester War Memorial
Saturday, Oct. 27 at 10:30 a.m.
War Memorial, corner of Route 154 and Chester Main Street
Patriotic Concert and Slide Presentation
Sunday, Nov. 4 at 3 p.m.
Deep River Town Hall Auditorium
Free and open to the public
Veterans Day Parade
Sunday, Nov. 11 at 1 p.m.
Deep River—from the elementary school along Main Street to the
War Memorial