In 1943, the small upstate New York town of Granville came together to replace its ruined town clock with a new one, dedicated as a memorial to its hundreds of young men and women then serving in World War II. With materials and money in short supply, fundraising for the purchase took the full effort of the community. When the clock was installed on Main Street, its inscription read "Lest We Forget Those Who Served."



As the decades passed, the clock fell into disrepair and eventually stopped working entirely. In 2010, one Granville man was so moved by the sacrifices of his father's generation that he took on the challenge of refurbishing the clock and restoring it as a monument to the community's veterans. As he did so, his friends and neighbors were likewise inspired to reconnect to their past and each other as they celebrated their town’s most important icon.



We Gave Our Best commemorates the people of Granville, present and past, who made a story about a clock one worth reading.