Roselle Park Holds Contest On WWI Poems

Roselle Park merchants are joining in marking the centennial of The Great War by helping run a contest on World War I.

Residents can obtain a booklet listing the 12 World War I poems in the contest at the Roselle Park Veterans Memorial Library or at the Roselle Park Museum.

Each merchant participating in the program is posting a poem in its window. Residents can read it and have the merchant stamp or initial a page in the booklet.

Completed booklets should be brought to the library by Saturday, November 8th.

A drawing will be held on November 12th, the day after Veterans Day, and prizes will be awarded in four age groups: elementary school, middle school, high school, and adult.

Roselle Park has declared itself the Doughboy Borough to note the statues of doughboys – as U.S. soldiers in World War I were called – at the library and the American Legion Hall.

The borough lost 12 residents in the First World War.

World War I began in Europe a century ago this year, with the United States entering into it in 1917. The war ended in 1919.