Bernard F. Bargiel

Bernard “Bernie” Bargiel had a heart for veterans, especially disabled veterans.

Having earned a Purple Heart while serving as a U.S. Army medic during World War II, he took great pride in maintaining the area around the two Maryland Veterans Memorial Highway markers on Interstate 81, one near his Maugansville home and the other one near Williamsport.

For about a decade, Bernie and Clear Spring resident Ernie Unger, who is a Vietnam vet, planted and watered flowers at the memorial, said Frances Bargiel, Bernie’s wife of 62 years. He also was instrumental in ensuring flagpoles were installed so the U.S., Maryland and POW flags could fly at both memorials.

“Disabled veterans were so important to him. Those memorials were so important to him,” Frances said as she described how the two men would fill empty gallon milk jugs with water to water the plants at least once a week.

They also fertilized, weeded, pruned, occasionally painted and picked up trash, whatever was needed to keep the memorials spruced up.

Frances said Bernie liked it when truckers would drive by while the two men were working and honk their horns.

“He was always so happy when someone acknowledged the work they did to honor veterans,” she said.

Bernie’s green thumb came from his mother, said daughter Annette Plitman of Olney, Md.

“His parents were very poor and saved plant seeds from year to year to beautify their yards in Poland,” Frances said.

Bernie, a charter member and the first president of the Washington County Rose Society, raised 350 varieties of roses in the backyard of their Maugansville home and exhibited them at shows in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Ohio.

Bernie and Frances also planted flowers around the Welcome to Maugansville sign.

“We raised our family here. We planted flowers — what a way to honor the community,” Frances said.

Bernie was born and raised in Wheeling, W.Va., the only child of Polish immigrants Joseph and Nellie Bargiel. When he began elementary school, he spoke only Polish, said son-in-law Ted Michel of Murrells Inlet, S.C.

His parents took great pride in Bernie being a 1943 graduate of Central Catholic High School in Wheeling since most students in Poland at that time attended school only through the sixth grade. 

After high school, Bernie served in the Army’s 70th and 3rd Infantry Division Medical Detachment and the 39th Field Artillery Detachment.

“He stayed on after the war to help empty the concentration camps,” daughter Joan Michel said.

When Bernie returned to Wheeling, he couldn’t find a job and hitchhiked to Detroit because he wanted to build cars. He got a job at Chrysler and hated it.

Bernie then was hired by All American Airways, now US Airways. He transferred to Hagerstown in 1949.

After a variety of other jobs, Bernie worked for 12 years as an auditor for the state of Maryland during the years Louis Goldstein was comptroller.