Rain Day festival dry and somber, but still fun
Observer-Reporter
Kendall Triplett of New Freeport uses an umbrella to shade herself from the sun during the 2018 Rain Day Festival in Waynesburg.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Glenda Dunn Engle looks at a wreath Sunday dedicated to her uncle Harry Dunn who is one of Waynesburg’s Rain Day Boys. Glenda was escorted by U.S. Army Sgt. Matt Sunseri to a temporary memorial on the Green County Courthouse lawn.
Historian John Hook III speaks Sunday about the history of the Rain Day Boys, men from Company K from Waynesburg who lost their lives July 29, 1918 in World War I in France.
WAYNESBURG – It was the sunniest of Sundays in the Greene County seat, comfortably warm, with no hint of an ominous cloud.
What a rotten day in Waynesburg.
Observer-Reporter
Observer-Reporter
Rosie Bedilion, left, and Mary Bloom, sisters from Uniontown, take in the sights of the 2018 Rain Day Festival.
Summer days don’t get more beautiful than the one bestowed on the borough Sunday, and that is the semisweet lament. This is the place where, according to record-keepers, at least a drop of rain falls July 29 at nearly 80 percent frequency.
From 1874 through 2017, liquid sunshine was detected on that date on 115 of 144 years.
Make that 115 of 145, apparently.
Athena Bowman, borough administrative assistant and special events coordinator, reported around 7:30 p.m. it had been a precipitation-free Sunday in Waynesburg – with none expected before midnight.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Eliora Edgreen stands with other umbrella decorating contestants Sunday in the at the Rain Day Festival in Waynesburg.
The borough had a couple of troops of “official rain watchers” very early in the day. They were members of Boy Scout Troops 1168 and 1280, of Greene County, who camped out on the county courthouse lawn Saturday into Sunday.
“They reported ‘no rain’ as of 6 a.m.,” Bowman said.
This was Waynesburg’s 40th annual Rain Day celebration, and while it was a festive occasion overall, featuring large crowds, there was a somber undercurrent.
Sunday was the 100th anniversary of the deaths of the Rain Day Boys. They were 18 men – all from Greene County – attached to Company K of the 110th Infantry. The 18 were fighting in France toward the end of World War I.
One of them actually died the day before, preparing for an assault on German forces. When the attack occurred July 29, 1918, 17 others from Greene were killed or wounded severely enough to subsequently die. It was the largest single-day loss of soldiers from the county in any military battle.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Kristen Cross won this year’s umbrella decorating contest Sunday with her umbrella titled, “Rainbow Connection,” during the Rain Day Festival in Waynesburg.
Those 18 soldiers were honored early in the program, memorialized by speakers. A wreath with a photo of each Rain Day Boy was presented to descendants who appeared; some soldiers were not represented by family members. And banners of each were attached to flagpoles on High Street.
A memorial to those soldiers is to be dedicated in Greene County.
Umbrellas – even though they weren’t used to fend off the elements – were a popular souvenir item being sold Sunday.
One in particular was a tribute to this group. It featured 18 large plastic raindrops dangling, each bearing a different Rain Day Boy’s picture.
Fun, of course, also reigned on Rain Day. The celebration was replete with an umbrella contest, diaper derby, dunking booth, games, a petting zoo, balloon art and food and vendors of other sorts.
But this, appropriately, was a time of remembrance as well, to the day a century earlier, when 18 young males from the county perished in what was famously, but erroneously, promoted as “the war to end all wars.”
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Two planes from SOAR of Greene County fly over High Street in Waynesburg Sunday in honor of the Rain Day Boys who died July 29, 1918, during World War I.
Guest speaker John Hook III honored them, and all U.S. military members ever, with his succinct opening words: “We’re the land of the free because we’re the home of the brave.”
Rain or not, this was a memorable day.