This year, November 11 was an absolutely gorgeous fall day, and I had no good reason not to visit a local veterans memorial.

I stopped by the nearby memorial for the men who died during the Second World War and left flowers.

But the main trip was to a memorial a couple of miles away which I’d never visted before. Back in October 1919, mothers who had lost their sons in the Great War had dedicated a grove of saplings in the hopes that in time the trees would grow and be a fitting tribute to the boys they had lost.

You can see the site here.

The grove spreads out over a little hillside, and the memorial plaque at the entrance makes the plan clear.

It’s hard to read here, but an oak sapling was planted in honor of the fallen from every state. By some accounts, this was the first memorial for the dead from the First World War in the entire country.

And now, those oaks are over a century old.

At first every state tree was marked with a plaque.

But over time, some plaques have been lost to corrosion, or souvenir seekers, or simply buried by leaves, only to emerge again in the spring.

Some trees have fallen and have been replaced.

And some have fallen more recently and are waiting to be replaced.

A stone path winds it way up the hill where the grove stands, but this time of year it’s largely covered in leaves.

And eight years after the grove was dedicated, a memorial pavilion was added. Former First Lady Edith Wilson came to dedicate it.

The entire site sits on roughly an acre. It’s not fancy, it’s far less manicured than places like Arlington Cemetery or much of Gettysburg, but in its own way it’s still a fitting memorial to The War to End All Wars.