Flag returns to Hallock after 80-year absence

By Anna Jauhola
A few months before the 80th anniversary of Victory in England Day (VE Day), the Hallock city clerk’s office took a surprising phone call.
A woman in California has been preparing to move and in her cleaning, she came across a U.S. flag her father had saved. Kelly Symmes didn’t know anything about the flag, until she read the note attached. Supposedly it was taken from Hallock City Hall on May 8, 1945, by Harry “Hap” Hopkinson.
“That’s when I called your city hall asking if they’d like it back,” Symmes said in a phone interview.
Her dad, William Powers, was born and raised in Winnipeg and was apparently friends with Hopkinson. But she doesn’t recall her dad talking about the guy, whose name is attached to a city park in Winnipeg.
“I’m assuming this was a friend of my dad’s,” Symmes said. “Maybe when my parents moved to the U.S., which was in about 1959 or 1960, maybe this guy gave it to them. Honestly, I don’t know how he got it.”
In her research, Symmes could only find the park named after Hopkinson and an obituary, which noted his service to Canada during WWII and his civic involvement in Winnipeg.
Although she took the flag home in 2009 after her dad passed away, finding it again in her own home clean-out sparked a mission to find that flag a home. First, she asked her siblings if any of them wanted the flag. They didn’t.
When she found Hopkinson had five children, she tried to find those kids too, to no avail.
Finally, she phoned Hallock City Hall.
“I thought, maybe I’ll try to sell it on ebay, but especially with this flag, I felt it needed to go back where it belongs,” Symmes said. “If it hadn’t been for my dad’s note, I wouldn’t have had a clue.”
Deputy City Clerk Kara Johnson was the one who answered Symmes’s call. Johnson loves history and was very excited about the city receiving a 48-star flag.
“It’s a part of history! How could I not say yes when she asked if we wanted it?” Johnson said.
The flag arrived in Hallock in mid-February. With such a significant flag, Johnson said she’d like to see it framed and placed in the city hall, along with the note.
A 48-star flag is specifically referred to as “The Celebrant,” as it flew on flagpoles throughout the U.S. during two world wars and the nation’s largest crisis, the Great Depression, according to ushistory.org. Flags featuring 48 stars flew across the country from 1912 to early 1959 when Alaska was admitted to the union.
In searching out whether Hallock actually had a VE Day celebration in 1945, this reporter couldn’t find any coverage in the Enterprise archives. And a search through the Kittson County Historical Society revealed no evidence that Hallock held a VE celebration.
If anyone has any information about a VE Day celebration in Hallock – May 8, 1945 – let us know! Connecting the dots on this story would be one for the history books.

HALLOCK DEPUTY CITY CLERK KARA JOHNSON displays the 48-star flag apparently taken from Hallock City Hall on May 8, 1945. (Enterprise photo by Anna Jauhola)