And he still does.
Two weeks shy of 80, Burkart is back in work clothes at New Britain Baptist Church, leading a major restoration of the pavilion by the borough's historic preservation committee. More than an overseer of others' labors, he has hauled lumber in his crimson pickup, cut rafters, and raised a new roof to replace one blown away years ago by a hurricane.
By Nov. 12, Veterans Day weekend, the 20-by-36-inch plaque titled "Our Honor Roll" should be in place for the rededication ceremony.
"I'm probably one of the few living people in this community who still remember something about this," Burkart said of the memorial's provenance.
Through its decline, he also was one of the few who took much notice of the pavilion, which looked like a forgotten refreshment stand.
Why the town would rally now to save it - to raise $2,200, to donate materials and time - is a story in a box. Rather, three boxes, discovered on a shelf in the basement of the borough's administrative hall and labeled "historic."
When preservation committee members looked inside, they found photographic negatives from the 1931 dedication of the memorial, built in memory of H. Walter Harvey. Killed in France in 1918, he was believed to be New Britain's sole military casualty of World War I. He was originally buried in France, but his mother was intent on bringing him home, and in 1920 reburied him at nearby Beulah Cemetery.
As the bronze plaque attests, nine other borough residents served but survived, among them Burkart's father, Henry Parmalee Burkart, and his uncle, George E. Rowland.
One box also held a letter written in 1957 by Bruce Burkart's grandmother, Louise, then New Britain's historian. She described a pavilion that, in its heyday, was literally the town watering hole.
The village leaders who erected it had wanted a memorial that did more than honor veterans. They thought it should also benefit the community. So they added a public cistern.
