BRAGA SQUARE IS DEDICATED

Remember that we spoke of those young men who called themselves The School Street Alliance and collected metal for the war effort?  One of those young men was Anthony Braga.  The School Street Village not only gave scrap metal to the country's wars it gave its young men.  In October of 1951 during the Korean Conflict, Corporal Anthony Braga made that ultimate sacrifice.

This is not a good photo but nevertheless one can see the wonderful smile of this courageous
24 year old young man.  Read the writeup to see just how brave our young Anthony was and how
much he deserved to have The Corner he loved dedicated to his memory.

Source:American Monuments Commission

On Sunday, September 20, 1953 The Square was officially dedicated to Corporal Anthony Braga.

1,200 people thronged the Square and watched silently as Corporal Braga's brother 

unveiled the plaque orever changing the name of The Corner to Braga Square.  Earlier a parade whose music was provided by the Taunton City Band which he would have known so well started at the Security Office way up on School Street and proceeded to The Square.  Various members of the Braga family, including his mother were present at the solemn event.  Many state and military officials as well as local and city representatives were also present and spoke.

In the end though, it was a Village event and the Village held it to itself 

in  remembrance then and now.

                                   

Ironically, one of the speakers that day said: " Our purpose is to pay tribute to the memory of Corporal Anthony Braga who gave his life for us in the Korean war, which has recently, and we hope forever,

brought war to an end."

If only that had been true....  There were a total of 836 young men from the state of Massachusetts  who gave their all in this conflict. 

                                                                                               (source: National Archives).

                                                                       .......................

  Thanks to Elaine Farinha DeMoranville for her research at the Old Colony Historical Society and Arlene Gouveia for help with this post.

I do not have data regarding other young men or women

 from the Village who were casualties of the Korean War or other wars.

If you have such information and would be willing to share it,

please do let me know.  It would be an honor to honor them.