Between the Boothbay Region High School playing fields and Townsend Avenue stands a Blue Star Marker. It was placed there by Boothbay Region Garden Club in 2010, and it rests in a pocket garden flanked by American flags and azaleas in full bloom. A red, white and blue wreath has been set beneath the marker by Linda Redman, Garden Club Federation of Maine’s Blue Star Marker chair, in recognition of Memorial Day.

The history of the Blue Star Markers reaches back to the final days of World War II. Members of the Garden Club of New Jersey, Redman said, were looking for ways to honor the men and women who had served their country in the war. The Club’s president at the time, Mrs. Lewis M. Hull, was inspired: She proposed that 1,000 flowering dogwood trees be planted along a five-mile stretch of highway to be designated “Blue Star Drive.” The project was approved in 1945, and in 1946 the National Council of State Garden Clubs (now tNational Garden Clubs Inc., NGC) adopted a plan to support “a ribbon of living memorial plantings traversing every state.” That plan would be called the Blue Star Memorial Highway Program, and in 1947, Mrs. Frederick R. Kellogg, the Council’s then president, designed a marker that would identify the highways.

Over time, the program has expanded to honor all service men and women past, present and future. The original highway marker design is still in use, but variations now include a smaller “By-Way Marker,” a “Memorial Marker” (used at sites not on a highway), and a Gold Star Family Marker to honor families whose member died in service of their country.

The NGC continues to run the Blue Star program, but each state is responsible for overseeing its own Markers. Redman has been Maine’s Blue Star Marker chair since 2007. Maine, she said, was one of the first states to adopt a Blue Star Marker, at Kittery Circle in 1951. In the 70-plus years since, 28 more markers have been erected across the state, plus one Gold Star Family Marker.

For Redman, a military wife and mother, the cause is “near and dear. I like that it’s not just a commemoration of past personnel or dedicated to a particular branch of the military.”

Redman encourages Garden Club members to mark certain days each year, “particularly Memorial Day, July 4 and Veterans Day. But each club does their own thing. For example, Bar Harbor encourages the leaving of messages from families and loved ones.” The leaving of mementos happens in Boothbay from time to time. Redman recalled, “One time, when I was tending the garden, I found a painted heart that someone had left, maybe one of the High School students.”

Redman is always happy to share information about the Blue Markers and hopes to encourage Maine’s Garden Clubs to raise more. It is, she said, “important to acknowledge the service, sacrifice, and dedication of those who have served, are serving, and will serve our country.”