Memorial Street Signs

“PARR STREET”


In observance of every Memorial Day, Hampton Veterans of Foreign Wars gave the supreme sacrifice in defense of their country, in WORLD WAR II, KOREA and VIETNAM and streets, bridges, parks & playgrounds in Hampton, were named in their honor.


Harry A. Parr, Jr.
Harry A. Parr, Jr. — PARR STREET


Parr Street
PARR STREET
In Memory of Harry A. Parr, Jr. — World War II
[Photo courtesy John Hirtle, Atlantic News]


[The following excerpt is from the Memorial Day Ceremony given at the
Hampton Academy Jr. High School on May 29, 1998,
produced and directed by Sheila Nudd, Music Director.]

6. HARRY A. PARR, JR., offered by Anthony Bronzo:

Today I am here to let you know about Harry Alfred Parr through the eyes of my grandmother, Lorraine (Parr) Beush, his sister. Harry Parr was born March 25, 1917 and moved to Hampton in 1929, when he was twelve years old. He graduated from Hampton Academy receiving the Honor Medal for outstanding scholastic achievement. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, which was a group of young people located in Littleton, New Hampshire to clear parks and trails. They lived in barracks and earned a very small salary. While working for C.C.C., one of the supervisors recognized his intelligence and his exceptional leadership qualities and convinced him to go to U.N.H.

Harry spent five years at U.N.H. becoming a civil engineer. At first he had wanted to be a forester, but changed his mind. At U.N.H. he made the football team, Wildcats. His first year playing, he injured his knee and had to have it operated on forcing him to give up football. He then joined the Pep Squad.

Upon graduating from U.N.H. in 1941, he went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers working in Franklin, New Hampshire. After enlisting in the A.C.of E. he did officers training at Fort Belivar, Virginia. In June of 1942, he married Evelyn Brown from Camden, Maine who at the time was a school teacher in Kensington, New Hampshire. On January 9, 1944, his company battalion was shipped to active duty in Europe. On January 11, 1944, just two days after he left the country, Randall Alfred Parr was born. Lieutenant Parr did not live to see his only son.

He was killed on November 27th, 1944 when the jeep he was travelling in hit a land mine and exploded. This was during the Battle of the Bulge. He was buried in Margraaten, Holland. In 1948, his remains were brought back to the High Street Cemetery and buried.

[PARR STREET was named in his honor.]



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