The names of George and Hubert Clements are on the newest memorial stone in Veterans Memorial Park on Main Street in Lewiston. The monument will be dedicated at a ceremony at 10 a.m. Sunday. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
LEWISTON — The day after her brother and Air Force veteran Hubert Clements died in May last year, Dolores Cormier reached out to the L&A Veterans Council, the local group that oversees Veterans Memorial Park and its reverent collection of monuments, memorials and military artifacts.
Navy Veteran Dana Cook, of Durham, looks for relatives names on the newest memorial stone in Veterans Memorial Park in Lewiston Thursday afternoon. During the process, he found someone with his same name only it had a different middle initial. The stone will be dedicated during a ceremony on Sunday morning. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal
Thousands of local veterans are listed on the 32 granite memorial stones, each with more than 200 names listed on them. Her two late brothers, Hubert and George Clements, had both served their country in the Air Force — Hubert for 26 years — but neither one had been recognized for their service at the venerable Lewiston park.
Cormier wanted to correct that omission.
On Sunday, the 33rd monument etched with the names of more than 200 local heroes will be dedicated during a solemn ceremony at 10 a.m. in the park beside the Androscoggin River at the base of the falls next to the Longley Bridge on Main Street.
Two of the names on the new stone, dedicated to the Navy Seals, will be George and Hubert Clements.
Cormier, 78, of Minot, and her older sister Delecia Veayo, 83, of Auburn, will attend the ceremony.
Cormier said she contacted Norm Cote, then the L&A Veterans Council treasurer and in charge of collecting the names for the monuments. She had to complete an application and submit proof of her brothers military service and honorable discharge, normally a DD-214 document.
Veayo was unaware of Cormier’s effort to get their brothers’ names on the monuments until recently.
Hubert Clement was born in Portland in 1939, five years after his brother George, and graduated from Edward Little High School in Auburn in 1957. He joined the Air Force in the 1960s and worked in communications, reaching the rank of chief master sergeant. His 26 years of service included time in Vietnam.
“He went all over the world,” Cormier said. Among his other stops were Turkey, Philippines, Spain, Alaska and several United States bases.
With the exception of Turkey, his wife, Wini, and their three children, Brian, Karen and Michael, accompanied Hubert on his military travels, Cormier said.
According to Cormier, Hubert liked to tell the story of his assignment in Turkey, where he was scheduled to teach English. He spent three months learning the Turkish language, but when he arrived in Turkey, everyone there already knew how to speak English.
“He loved being part of the government and the work,” Cormier said.
George Clements, who was born in Gardiner and lived as a youngster in Auburn before graduating from South Portland High School, served four years in the Air Force before moving to California. He worked in reservations for United Airlines for several years, before the company moved its operations to Chicago. George remained in California and became a renowned custom cabinet designer and installer, Cormier said. He died in 2011 at age 77 in Hidden Valley Lake, California.
Hubert enjoyed bowling and for a time managed Spare Time Lanes in Lewiston. He also enjoyed building birdhouses, which his wife would paint and then give away to family and friends. Later in life, he loved to follow his grandchildren’s activities, especially hockey.
According to his obituary, Hubert died in 2020 of lung cancer at age 80 and is buried at Maine Veterans Cemetery in Augusta.
“Hubert was a God-fearing ,man,” Cormier said. “Everywhere he went, he talked about what God did for him.”
The brothers did much for their country, too.
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