The marker for Memory Lane on East North Broadway in Columbus, Ohio

Last week, I expected to take a trip down Memory Lane when I attended my 35th high school reunion. Much to my surprise, it was an event two days later that took me down the literal Memory Lane and taught me a bit of Columbus history.

I arranged to meet one of my oldest friends from college, Vicki, in Clintonville. She lives a few blocks from my home in the 1980’s, and she’d told me about a guided art walk being held in the neighborhood. I was eager to take a stroll down Memory Lane with her, because I had walked, driven, and bicycled every street in that area.

Halfway through the tour, I got a real surprise. It turns out that East North Broadway, a street I have traversed thousands of times, actually is Memory Lane!

In the 1930’s, when the city was planning to build a new bridge across the Olentangy River at Broadway, the newly-formed Clintonville Women’s Club proposed that the bridge approach have flowering trees along it, planted for young men of the neighborhood who died in the service.

Little did they know what was to come — the project was underway when World War II broke out. Memory Lane would be lined with trees, each one bearing a marker for one of the boys who died in the war.

Many years later, the city widened the street and removed the trees, which may be why I never realized I was driving on a historic street every day. But a Boy Scout project saved the markers and had them preserved in a nearby cemetery.

Today, there are markers along East North Broadway, like the one above, for those who died in many wars, and homeowners maintain beautiful memory gardens with blooming trees in the strip between the sidewalk and the busy road.

And for those who attended the Friday night event of the high school reunion, I’m posting a few photos for you as well — our own little trip down “Memory Lane.”