By Mary O’KEEFE
June 14 is officially recognized as Flag Day, which was originally established with a proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson on May 30, 1916. But for a group of Montrose community members and a congressman, one day was not enough to celebrate and honor the American flag.
Local community leader Vito Cannella, who died in 2017, was one man who did not think a single day was enough to honor the flag. In 1965 Cannella, with businessman Bill Bailey, Ledger Newspaper Editor Don Carpenter, Congressman H. Allen Smith and Crescenta-Cañada Rotary Club members, gathered thousands of signatures to petition Congress to implement Flag Week.
Of the original Montrose members from that first Flag Week petition drive, Cannella was the last surviving one who continued to spread the word of the importance of the flag. Each year since 1967 he sent a letter to the sitting U.S. President reminding him of the importance of Flag Week.
“Congress requested and by joint resolution approved June 9, 1966 that the President issue annually a proclamation designating the week in which June14 occurs as ‘National Flag Week’ and calling upon all citizens of the United States to display the flag during that week,” according to a statement released on June 11, 2021.
“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim June 14, 2021, as Flag Day, and the week starting June 13, 2021 as National Flag Week. I direct the appropriate officials to display the flag on all federal government buildings during this week, and I urge all Americans to observe Flag Day and National Flag Week by displaying the flag. I encourage the people of the United States to observe with pride and all due ceremony those days from Flag Day through Independence Day, set aside by the Congress (89 Stat. 211), as a time to honor the American spirit, to celebrate our history and the foundational values we strive to uphold, and to publicly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America,” the statement continued.
This public statement is what Cannella had worked so hard for and was so proud of since 1966.
“My attachment to the flag is because this country helped me be what I am today,” said Cannella in an interview with CVW in 2016.
Cannella emigrated from Italy in 1953. In 1958, he opened Vito’s Barber Shop in the heart of Montrose. He also served as the postmaster of Montrose in the 1960s.
The flag was an important symbol to Cannella. He was born in Trieste, Italy on Oct. 27, 1928. He moved to Sicily where he attended school. After World War II, he returned to the town of his birth to work with the American Occupation soldiers and the Merchant Marines in hopes of finding a path to the United States. Cannella’s father had moved to the United States years before and it was his goal to find him.
As a Merchant Marine Vito sailed around the world and, on his 25th birthday, he arrived in Providence, Rhode Island. With limited resources and language skills, Vito searched for his father for months. He found him in San Pedro. Not only did he find his father but it was there that he met and married his wife Florence in 1954.
Cannella began learning English and started the process of becoming a United States citizen. It was this act of becoming a citizen that set him on a path that wrapped his life in the American flag.
Although Vito is gone, his presence is still felt along Honolulu Avenue not only during Flag Week but also throughout the year with a plaque dedication to him, Bill Bailey and the Rotary Club that helped in the creation of Flag Week. The plaque is located at the northwest corner of Honolulu Avenue and Ocean View Boulevard.