A five-year-long “labor of love” culminated in downtown Franklin this morning with the dedication of the “Lost Heroes” memorial.
I joined several hundred people at the Five Points intersection for the unveiling of a special statue honoring the 3,500 Williamson County residents who fought in World War Two. More specifically, the focus is on the 600 who never returned home. The sculpture features a familiar face in the community: the late Jimmy Gentry… sitting on a bench, ready to share his experiences serving overseas. The memorial was intentionally placed along the stone wall by Franklin’s historic Presbyterian Church… a wall that tells its own story of Franklin during World War Two.
“The most poignant thing that happened at this wall was in the mid-1940’s when young men would sit here waiting for a particular bus to arrive. And when it did, if your name was called, you were headed off to war to serve your country,” explained Franklin Alderman-at-Large, Brandy Blanton.
Jimmy Gentry was one of the many men called to serve.