EDWARDSBURG — The American Legion’s Veterans Memorial has received a facelift, thanks to a local pastor and his family.

Pastor Robert Geans of the First Pentecostal Church and his family donated their time and materials this fall to dismantle and repair the memorial, which had been settling into ground where an old house with a basement once was located.

The structure was built on the grounds of the Edwardsburg Area  History Museum, 26818 Main St., in May of 2008 after the legion’s large monument was moved across the street from the former Edwardsburg Fire Station.

The fire department purchased a much larger facility in 2007 and moved to M-62 at the south edge of the village. The American Legion then secured permission from the museum’s board of directors to construct a memorial for local veterans of all wars on the museum grounds. The location proved to be unstable because of the basement that once was there, and the memorial, with its large American flag and circle of commemorative bricks, purchased by families and dedicated to individual veterans, eventually began settling into the earth.

In 2016, when the First Pentecostal Church hosted a God and Country service, Ontwa Township Treasurer Meryl Christensen, in her position as treasurer of the Uptown Improvement Association, queried Pastor Robert Geans about donating his family’s expertise in concrete construction to repairing the structure.

In early November, just in time for Veterans Day, the Geans’ family swung into action. Over a period of three days, Geans, his sons, Ryan and Robert; his two nephews, Ryland and Remington Geans; and his son-in-law, Tyler Narlock, tore the center of the structure apart. After removing bricks and the original monument and adjusting the elevation of the existing foundation, they underpinned a smaller monument and added new concrete for the larger monument which then was replaced.

Geans worked in the family business, Robert Geans Corporation of Granger, Indiana, a concrete company,   for 25 years before he started pastoring at the Pentecostal church, located at the west edge of the Village of Edwardsburg, in March 2015. He replaced his father, the elder Robert Geans, who had been the church pastor for 36 years, and holds the title of Bishop.

Pastor Geans plans to purchase a commemorative brick to honor of his late grandfather, Bimel Smith, who was a Seaman 1st Class in the U.S. Navy during World War II.  Smith, who died in September, was a native of Missouri and moved to Edwardsburg in 1996 from Goshen, Indiana.

Commemorative bricks can be purchased for $25 from the American Legion Post 365, located at 25751 U.S. 12.  Legion hours are noon to 10 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays, and noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays.