Mrs. Gladys Hastings
campaigner for Ocean City's war memorial · active 1945
With Miss Elizabeth Laws, she carried Ocean City's war memorial through the second half of 1945. On 18 September the two came before the council asking for aid in planning and securing an Honor Roll for service men. On 15 October they returned with Robert Cropper and Mr. Harris to discuss a War Memorial Building and proposed sites, and the council listened to their plans and took them under consideration. The council's answer is not recorded on either occasion, and the 1945 minute book ends without a decision.
In the record (3)
1945 · 1945-09-18
Two women came to the Ocean City council in September 1945 asking for help to plan and secure an Honor Roll for the town's service men.
Mrs. Gladys Hastings and Miss Elizabeth Laws were present asking for aid in planning and securing an Honor Roll for service men. It is the second honour-roll item of the year - in April the council had granted Frank Sacca a permit for a board on the Electric Light lot to carry the names - and the same two women returned on 15 October with Robert Cropper and Mr. Harris to discuss a War Memorial Building and its proposed sites. The same 18 September meeting appointed Mrs. A. M. Ball as the town's auditor, and applied setbacks by hand to four building applications months before any zoning ordinance existed: Ogden Davis changed his own application to read five feet from each party line and not over 80% of ground covered, and was granted.
Source · checked 2026-08-12
1945 · 1945-10-15
Ocean City's war memorial was proposed as a building with candidate sites in October 1945, nine months after the council discussed a monument and reached no decision.
Mrs. Gladys Hastings, Elizabeth Laws, Robert Cropper and Mr. Harris were before the council discussing a War Memorial Building and proposed sites, and the council listened to their plans and took them under consideration. On 9 January the whole record had been one line: 'Monument for Service Men was discussed and no decision reached.' Between the two came Frank Sacca's honour-roll board in April and the two women's request for help with an Honor Roll in September. The same 15 October meeting discussed the widening of the Boardwalk and reached no final agreement - three weeks later it settled on thirty feet.
Source · checked 2026-08-12
1946 · 1946-06-02
Ocean City's Honor Roll for its service men was unveiled on 2 June 1946, paid for in part by a hundred dollars from the council - and the two women who had asked for it in 1945 were left to find their own speaker.
On 14 May 1946 Elizabeth Laws and Gladys Hastings were before the council asking advice as to a speaker for the unveiling of the Honor Roll for service men on June 2nd, and for a donation towards the expense of it. 'Council gave them $100 and left them to secure their own speaker.' It is the end of a thread that runs back three and a half years: the $25 service flag of February 1943; 'Monument for Service Men was discussed and no decision reached' in January 1945; the permit to Frank Sacca in April 1945 for a board on the Electric Light lot to carry the names; the same two women asking for help planning an Honor Roll on 18 September 1945; and the War Memorial Building with proposed sites in October 1945. The unveiling is the only war-related event in the whole of the 1946 minute book. The site, the speaker, the form of the thing and the names on it are still nowhere in the record.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Miss Elizabeth LawsRudolph DolleJohn B. Lynch
Source · checked 2026-08-15