BRUNSWICK

At 93 years old and clad in her American Legion uniform, Iona Osnoe knows how to get a crowd clapping to a patriotic anthem, and how to cut a rug.

During Monday’s Memorial Day observance at the Brunswick Mall, Osnoe and former American Legion Post 20 President Chuck Ciciotte danced away to the Nrembega Brass Quintent’s rendition of the “Colonel Bogey March” as the crowd clapped along.

After years of participating in Memorial Day parades, Brunswick native and Army veteran Osnoe finally got to lead one, as this year’s Grand Marshal of the Brunswick-Topsham Memorial Day Parade.

“I’m pretty happy about it, after all these years,” said Osnoe, who was one of four siblings to join the Army during World War II, speaking to The Times Record last week.

Like millions of Americans, Osnoe answered the call to serve when America entered the Second World War.

“I always liked the military, and when they advertised that they would take women in the Army I decided to go,” said Osnoe.

It was 1942, and Osnoe was 21 and living in Brunswick at the time.

Osnoe underwent basic training at Fort Des Moines in Iowa, before being transferred to Norfolk, Va., as part of the Army’s Aircraft Warning Service.

“We landed in Norfolk on New Year’s Eve,” Osnoe said. “It was pretty hectic. It was a Navy base. We got there around midnight, and all you could see were white hats. The streets were full of sailors. … It was pretty overwhelming.”

At Norfolk, Pvt. Osnoe helped keep track of incoming aircraft, but health problems prompted her superiors to give her a medical discharge in 1943, much to her chagrin.

“I fought with them,” Osnoe said. “I didn’t want to be discharged.”

According to her profile from Volunteers of America Northern New England, Osnoe returned to the Mid-coast, working at Hyde Windlass, later a part of Bath Iron Works, turning gears on lathes for PT boat engines, and worked on the family farm, where she met her future husband, Leonard Osnoe.

Four of their seven children would serve in Vietnam.

Osnoe worked for the Merrymeeting Community Action program, now the Community and Economic Development program, eventually serving on the program’s board and that of Pine Tree Legal Assistance. She also worked in Bath and Augusta unemployment bureaus in the 1970s and ’80s.

According to Parade Committee Chairwoman Tasha Connors, Osnoe has served as a member of the American Legion for 66 years, serving in American Legion posts in Sagadahoc and Cumberland counties. She is currently chaplain of Maine District 8.

Osnoe has received citations from the state of Maine signed by Gov. Paul LePage and from the state Legislature. She lives in Topsham at the Westrum House senior community.

Parade participants

Last week, it was announced that Osnoe would be this year’s Topsham-Brunswick Memorial Day Grand Marshal.

The Brunswick-Topsham Memorial Day Committee had initially planned on designating each World War II veteran co-grand marshals.

“We decided it would be difficult to have so many grand marshals, so we decided on Iona Osnoe,” said committee member Mark Waltz.

World War II veterans participated in the parade, driven in convertibles, in the same general area of the parade as Osnoe.

Speaking during Monday’s observance, Sen. Susan Collins told the crowd that she couldn’t wait to tell her husband, a World War II veteran, about “the dance of Iona and Chick.”

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com