Lakeside Cemetery caretaker offers heroes tour for Memorial Day

"This is the one day where we all need to stop and think about what these people gave up," said Lake Side Cemetery caretaker Danny Waite.

Waite has always had a passion for history, and as a current caretaker for Dover's Lakeside Cemetery he's since taken an interest in the stories each headstone tells. Especially of those who've served in previous wars.

"One rainy day I took two of the names of guys that I've been cutting grass around here for, for a long time and went up to the archives and starred researching and just completely was hit with the bug of trying to find stories," said Waite.

For the past 10 years in honor of military members who've lost their lives, Waite spends Memorial Day offering a heroes tour highlighting the dozens of veterans who fought in World War II who lived in Kent County and Dover.

"I found that there were 17 soldiers from World War II that died that are buried or memorialized here at Lake Side cemetery so I went and found all 17 of those which then I wanted to find everyone from Dover so I accomplished that so now I have everybody from Kent County," said Waite.

One of the veterans highlighted in the heroes memorial is 23-year-old Robert Burger who's body was never recovered and deemed to be lost at sea. And although he was never found the memories from the home he grew up in are still close by.

"It's really their stories, they're people, we learn history at school but when you put a face on it and you let the person know that this was a person that's from our community, that gave their life so that we have freedoms that we have today," said Waite.

And Waite says even after all this time, he still learns something new every day from the heroes that came before him.

"A lot of the times that I've done this tour I've had family members who come out and that's their relative and they actually have given me pictures and other stories about that individual so I learned a lot actually from family members," said Waite.

Waite says he'll continue to offer these hero tours every memorial day for years to come.