Carranza ceremony

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Saturday, July 10, 2004

Faint remnants of racial slurs will be covered for ceremony
By LARRY HAJNA
Courier-Post Staff



History took on vandalism in the Pinelands on Friday and, sadly, history didn't fare that well.

Scott Kreilick, a conservator who works to maintain many of Philadelphia's statues and sculptures, attempted to remove racial slurs spray-painted on the Carranza Memorial, the venerable monument to Mexican goodwill aviator Emilio Carranza who died when his plane crashed in these woods 76 years ago.

American Legion Post 11 in Mount Holly, the caretaker of the 9-foot-tall monolith that stands in a sandy clearing amid a vast pine forest, tried five times to scrub the spray paint off since a park ranger discovered the vandalism in May. Faint but readable traces remained, however.

With the post's annual ceremony commemorating Carranza's ill-fated flight scheduled for today, the state called on Kreilick to make a last-ditch stab at removing the slurs.

Kreilick applied a clay poultice containing acetone in an attempt to draw remnants of paint from the memorial's porous limestone blocks, paid for by Mexican children who raised money to erect the monument five years after the crash.

"The amount of paint that was taken off in previous attempts was pretty significant," he said. "What's left is deep in the stone. Because of the temperature and dryness and texture of the stone, the solvent that's in the poultice is evaporating very quickly."

Consequently, the graffiti was still visible after Kreilick chipped away the dried poultice. Instead, he decided to mask the graffiti with a temporary emulsion that matches the color of the limestone.

A decision will be made later whether to try further removal, Kreilick said, adding that the remaining paint should fade in time anyway.

State police are investigating and reportedly have questioned at least one person in connection with the vandalism.

Arturo Sarukhan of the Mexican consulate in New York is expected to attend today's ceremony. Gov. James E. McGreevey was also invited but it was not clear if he would attend.

Carranza, nicknamed the Charles Lindbergh of Mexico, crashed during a thunderstorm on July 12, 1928, about an hour after departing New York for Mexico City in a flight designed to improve strained relations between the two nations. A year earlier, Lindbergh flew from Mexico City to New York.

Flying low and in the dark to avoid the worst of the storm, Carranza's plane, a Ryan aircraft similar to Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, clipped the tops of pine trees and crashed.

A berry picker found the wreck the next day and members of the Mount Holly American Legion helped recover the body. Some say he was found clutching a flashlight. He is buried in the Cemetery for Illustrious Men in Mexico City.

Over the years, interest in the annual ceremony has risen and fallen, said Bill Heller, chairman of the memorial committee for the American Legion post.

"It's been as little as two people, it's been a handful of people. Sometimes they'd pull in a pickup truck and the kids would climb a ladder and go up to the tops of the trees here and they would nail the American flag and Mexican flag up in these treetops," he said.

During this year's event, members of the post will carry a stretcher bearing a mannequin dressed as Carranza and clutching a flashlight.

"It hits home," Heller said. "It's really emotional. People will be crying and sobbing."

Ismael Carranza of Grapevine, Texas, is a second cousin to the aviator. He hopes something good comes out of the graffiti incident. This was the first time the monument, in an area as remote as it gets in New Jersey, has ever been vandalized.

"At first I was pretty angry," he said. "But then I talked to Bill about it and we decided that we should make a positive out of a negative by trying to improve the monument because it needs it anyway, it's been weather-beaten for so many years.

"Maybe this will give us the exposure to get some volunteers that know the trade as far as remodeling the monument and give us a hand in doing so." IF YOU GO


American Legion Post 11 in Mount Holly will hold its annual commemoration of Emilio Carranza's fatal crash at 1 p.m. today. The ceremony is at the monument on Carranza Road in Wharton State Forest, about 6 miles southeast of the village of Tabernacle.
 

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Sep 17, 2002
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bach2yoga said:
"It hits home," Heller said. "It's really emotional. People will be crying and sobbing."

I was not able to make it, but I have been at it many times and never saw anyone crying.

Guy
 
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