When Park Ridge’s Memorial Day parade steps out to march around 10 a.m. on the holiday, the accompanying music will be a two-way street. The patriotic melodies will remind participants and spectato…
Marie Sartor Pawelek, age 100, was chosen to be grand marshal in Park Ridge’s 2024 Memorial Day parade. She joined the WACs in 1943 and, using her vocal and musical training, helped pioneer using music therapy for veterans with PTSD. When the Park Ridge Memorial Day parade steps off this year, its grand marshal, active 100-year-old Marie Sartor Pawelek, will fit right in with its rousing music and honoring of veterans.
A Minnesota native, Pawelek was vocally talented, working as a blues singer. After a year in college in Duluth, she joined the WACs in 1943. Sent to Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso,Texas for training as a medic, Pawelek was stationed at Walter Reed, in the Washington, D.C. area, the Army’s top medical facility to work with amputees. The more primitive prosthetics of the time were assembled in the hospital’s basement.
“The servicemen were in terrible shape. I had pictures of me training them, and I sent the photos home to my parents. You just did . It is just like a surgeon that does something awful, but he saves the patients. You have to put everything else in back of you. You just know you’re going to do the best you can. You just hope they can be better.”
Marie Sartor Pawelek, 100, will do the honors as the grand marshal in Park Ridge’s 2024 Memorial Day parade. She served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, pioneering music therapy for combat veterans with PTSD. Marie Sartor Pawelek, age 100, a military veteran who will serve as grand marshal of Park Ridge’s 2024 Memorial Day parade, sang professionally in the decades after World War II. This program book shows that she sang at Eli’s the Place for Steak in Chicago in 1969. During the war, she used music therapy to help treat soldiers with PTSD.
Pawelek was in “shock” when she learned of her selection. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I was surprised and so happy to be picked.” Michael Pawelek will join his mother in the parade.
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