2019 Eartha Dengler History Award Ceremony to Honor Marc Laplante

The Lawrence History Center Board of Directors proudly present

Because of Marc Laplante, a fourth generation Lawrencian, the story of Lawrence in World War I cannot be forgotten. More than 5,500 men from Lawrence were called to serve in the Great War. Many were immigrants. 200 lost their lives. 36 who died in combat have bridges or buildings or squares named for them. But few Lawrencians today who come across Coyne Park or La Scola Square or the Novello Bridge know anything about the men whose names are on those plaques. Marc Laplante’s Lawrence WW1 Project gives us those young men. By using historic images of both Lawrence and the battlefields, and involving local leaders as narrators who stand at the scene of the markers, Laplante tells each man’s story and connects it to Lawrence -- as it was in 1917, and as it is today so that “the day they died was not the day they were forgotten.”