This image of a woman sitting at the Seattle War Memorial Plaza on Fourth Avenue was taken as a VWF (Veterans of Foreign Wars of the US) bugler calls "Taps" on Memorial Day. The woman is identified as a Gold Star mother, a woman entitled to display a gold star on a service flag, due to being the mother of a son or daughter that died during active service in the United States military. The granite slab behind her contains the names of Washington state citizens who were casualties of World War II. The memorial plaza was dedicated in January 1951 as part of the newly built Public Safety Building which housed the Seattle Public Health Department and the administrative headquarters of the Seattle Police Department. The building was located across the street from City Hall, at Fourth Avenue and Cherry Street. In 2005 the building and plaza were demolished; the city services were moved to a new Civic Center building complex between Third and Fifth Avenues. The granite memorial slabs were crushed at the time to prevent them from being reused.

In preparation for the closing of the Public Safety Building and the Memorial Plaza, a new and expanded memorial, the Garden of Remembrance, designed by landscape architect Robert Murase (1938-2005), was dedicated on July 4, 1998. The Garden is located outside Benaroya Hall on Second Avenue and University Street, a half-acre, L-shaped space which incorporates engraved granite slabs, elegant plantings, and a series of waterfalls, channels, and pools. The Garden of Remembrance is an official state memorial to more than 8,000 Washington state citizens who have given their lives in service since 1941. Every year on Memorial Day, families are invited to gather at the Garden to honor their fallen loved ones.

Caption information source: http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/5177
Caption information source: The Seattle Times, July 4, 1998, p. A6.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.