Jefferson County residents soon will have a place to honor and remember loved ones who died from COVID-19.
The Arnold City Council recently agreed to pay Warren Signs of Arnold $10,815 to create a Yellow Heart Memorial that will be mounted to the wall in the entry hallway at Arnold Recreation Center, 1695 Missouri State Road.
The seeds for the Yellow Heart Memorial movement were planted when Rosie Davis, 45, of Carrollton, Texas, started writing the names of people who have died from COVID-19 on paper yellow hearts. She started the effort after her mother, Mary Castro, died in May 2020 from complications related to the virus, according to the Yellow Heart Memorial website.
Meagan Wagner-Westermayer, 37, of Festus started looking for a place to set up a memorial in Jefferson County after her father and longtime Jefferson County Circuit Clerk Howard Wagner died in December 2020 from COVID-19.
“I am beyond ecstatic,” Wagner-Westermayer said about Arnold city officials agreeing to place the memorial in the rec center. “This journey has been long.”
Davis said Arnold’s memorial will be the first permanent once since she started the project at the Irving Archives and Museum in Texas.
She said the city of Irving is developing a plan for a permanent memorial, as are three California cities and a city in Florida.
“I’m very excited,” Davis said. “It is unfortunate that we have to do this to begin with, but it makes me happy to know people’s loved ones will never be forgotten.”
Coming to Arnold
City Administrator Bryan Richison said Allison Sweeney, an attorney who works with her father, Arnold city attorney Bob Sweeney, helped connect Wagner-Westermayer with city officials.
Richison said Wagner-Westermayer proposed a temporary wall, but city officials and staff members believed it should be a permanent one.
“We don’t want to say, ‘That is enough; we have remembered them enough; let’s stop,’” Richison said. “We talked about it and asked why does it need to be temporary? Why can’t it be permanent?”
The memorial Warren Sign has created will feature an aluminum plaque that says, “Yellow Heart Memorial Remembering Loved Ones We Have Lost to COVID.”
The memorial also will have a place to feature 128 names of people who died from the virus written over yellow hearts.
The memorial may be expanded if more than 128 names are submitted to the city, Richison said. As of Aug. 19, the county had seen 266 deaths from COVID-19, the Jefferson County Health Department reported.
Wagner-Westermayer, 37, who teaches first grade at Festus Elementary School, said she appreciates the city helping with the project.
“They kept me involved in the process, and that was meaningful that they included me so much on this,” she said. “It has been an exciting couple of months working on the process.”
Arnold Mayor Ron Counts said he believes the wall will help people understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the county.
“You listen to statistics and all of these things, but when you actually see the name of someone you recognize, it may hit home a lot closer,” Counts said. “We are seeing an uptick in this thing. We all just don’t know where the future will take us. I think this might be another reminder of how fragile life is and how we need to do everything we can to preserve it.
“I have known a lot of folks who have not made it through this thing. What worries me is how many more people’s names will go on this list. This may be a way for someone to realize they may need to make a change or do something different that might make a difference.”
The wall
Richison said he does not know when the memorial will be completed, but the city began working with Warren Signs to design the memorial shortly after the council approved the expenditure.
When the memorial is complete, the city likely will post information on its website, arnoldmo.org, about how county residents may submit names to be added to the wall.
“My thought right now, and it could change, is we will take people’s word for it,” Richison said. “We will ask them to verify the deceased lived in Jefferson County. We just hope people won’t abuse something like this. We don’t want to make it cumbersome. There is no monetary gain from this, so I hope they will be honest.”
Richison said the city will cover the cost for the initial creation of the memorial, but it would likely seek donations to expand the display, if needed.
Wagner-Westermayer said she will submit her father’s name for the memorial.
Howard Wagner graduated from De Soto High School in 1964, and he lived in De Soto before his death. He was a Vietnam War veteran and spent more than three decades in Jefferson County politics, serving as Jefferson County circuit clerk from 1987 through 2014. Before that, he was an associate judge on the old Jefferson County Court from 1979 until 1984, when the County Court’s name was changed to the County Commission. Then, for two years, he was a county commissioner.
Wagner-Westermayer said she hopes lots of other countians honor their loved ones by submitting their names for the memorial.
“I hope everyone who has lost someone to COVID, regardless of their political stance on COVID, wants their loved one’s name on the wall,” she said. “Regardless of someone’s personal feelings on the pandemic, it happened, and they lost someone due to the virus. Those people deserve to be remembered. The experiences families have had with their loved ones who have passed to COVID is awful. I hope people near and far want their loved ones’ names on that wall. They deserve to be remembered.”
Richison said he does not believe the memorial will be controversial.
“I am aware, like everybody, that so much about the pandemic has become politicized,” he said. “I don’t know how you can feel like it is bad to honor people who have died. I don’t expect any problems, but this is not something we are going to stop. We believe this is the right thing to do. If people disagree, we will have to address it.”
Arnold council members voted 5-0 Aug. 19 in favor of creating the memorial.
Councilmen EJ Fleischmann of Ward 1 and Mark Hood of Ward 3 were absent from the meeting, and Ward 4 Councilman Gary Plunk joined the meeting through Zoom after the vote was taken.