I did a little research to add to my meager knowledge about the day. As many of us know, Memorial Day is always the last Monday in May and is the day Americans honor their fellow citizens who died while serving in the U.S. military. What many people don't know is that the day didn't start out as Memorial Day. In 1868, after the end of the Civil War, an organization of Union Veterans called the Grand Army of the Republic declared that May 30th was officially Decoration Day. The birth of Decoration Day coincided with the establishment of national cemeteries, a necessity to accommodate the vast numbers of casualties sustained in the war. Citizens would decorate the graves of those they lost in the war, and over time, cities and towns joined the remembrances.
Eventually, Decoration Day evolved into Memorial Day, and the Uniform Monday Holiday Act was passed by congress in 1968 and established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May. They also declared the day a federal holiday, which took effect in 1971. This created a three-day weekend for federal employees, and essentially, the rest of us.
So tell me: How do you spend Memorial Day? Visits to remember those who served? Parades and boating? And for those amongst us who aren't Americans, is there a similar tradition in your country?
When the children were growing up, we always spent the Saturday before Memorial Day putting flags on all the military graves in the local cemetery; then on Memorial Day we would all attend the local remembrance ceremonies.
ReplyDeleteThis year, as always, there will be a parade [if it’s not rained out]; the rest of the day will be quiet . . . time for patriotic music and reflection.
What patriotic music do you listen to, Joan?
DeleteAs I'm currently putting together a set list for our July 4 concert, I'd love to know what you want to hear, too, Joan!
DeleteI have a couple of favorite CDs, Ingrid . . . “I Believe I Can Fly,” recorded by the Air Force Academy Cadets in 2000 and “Songs of Freedom,” done in 2003 by the United States Army Field Band.
DeleteThey’re a mix of American standards, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.,” and, since the cadets were all members of the various Cadet Chapel choirs, selections such as “On Eagle’s Wings,” “God of Our Fathers” and “Amazing Grace . . . .
Gigi, the standards include Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” America the Beautiful,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “America.” Service hymns include the Navy Hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” and the Air Force Hymn “Lord, Guard and Guide the Men Who Fly.”
DeleteLee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” is always a favorite as are “This Land is Your Land,” “This is My Country,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Another favorite is a medley of the songs of the various services . . . .
Gotcha covered, except for the Lee Greenwood. It's fun to see you name check the US Army Field Band, as we hosted them just a month or so ago. Good band. I also have friends in the US Army Ceremonial Band/Pershing's Own.
DeleteHappy Memorial Day, Reds! Thanks Ingrid for the history lesson on Memorial Day. We don't have a holiday here in Canada. The day we honour our veterans is Remembrance Day (November 11).
ReplyDeleteNow I'm going to have to do a little research on our Veteran's Day, which is also in November. I don't know off hand why we have one for those who died and those are didn't.
DeleteIngrid: We only have the 1 holiday in Canada. Please share your research - it would be interesting to know the different origins of Memorial Day vs Veterans Day.
DeleteHi Grace, I posted some info from the History Channel below.
DeleteWhen I was a kid my grandfather would round up my dad, my sister, and me, and take us all down to the deep Ozark hill country where he grew up. There we'd clean and decorate the graves of his and my grandmother's parents and grandparents. These would be in small community cemeteries that might hold a few families, tucked away in some corner of the hills that you needed a map to find. None of them were in towns, and I only remember one of them that had a church associated with it. This is surely where my fascination with small country cemeteries began. My sister and I would wander while the adults worked, reading unusual epitaphs--"Harvey Hobart, taken from Sycamore Pond . . ."--and, one year, making a list of all the tombstones we could read to enter into the records of the Ozark Genealogical Society so the information wouldn't be lost entirely. Although we had several generations of veterans in the family, none had died in combat, so we took the day to simply honor all our lost loved ones, and soak up Grandpa Jack's stories of growing up before World War I. Since I moved to Texas, I've paid attention to lost cemeteries in my area, but I have not been able to get back to those old family graves, way down in the Missouri hills.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful tradition! And I love the idea of a community cemetery. A great way to hold the memories of people close to you in your hearts. We have a lovely oldest cemetery in Madison CT, and also an amazing cemetery in Key West. I'm sure there will be at Memorial day parade in Key West – we love parades here. John was going to march in the Madison parade today, but it's once again pouring down rain.
DeleteAs a kid I took it all for granted, of course, but as an adult I can look back and see how very remote and close our pioneer history those communities were. Often it was just a collection of families that all lived one one particular side of the mountain. Place names were things like Pole Pen Hollow and Wolf Den Hollow. Two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and economic forces eventually moved people away from subsistence farming and out of the hills. The communities disappeared, until all that is left are the graves.
DeleteThat sounds like an amazing way to spend the day, Gigi! It also sounds like it would provide lots of fodder for fiction. The names alone get the creative juices flowing!
DeleteI marched in my town's parade with the Girl Scouts, too, Ingrid, white gloves and all - except it wasn't on Memorial Day. I like to cook outside with friends on this day, but as in CT, it's going to rain all afternoon, so we'll be cooking inside with friends. But it's also a day for me to reflect on the futility of most wars and the tragedy of killing fellow humans. A woman in my town this year made a stunning display of seven thousand white streamers hanging from ropes strung in a field across from her house. Each streamer bears the name of an American serviceperson killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, arranged by date. A beautiful, awful testimony.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the sight of all those streamers is sobering and thought-provoking. I wonder how long it took her to assemble...
DeleteWhen I was a kid we called it Decoration Day, obviously, but I'd forgotten that! I used to get it confused with Flag Day, which is June 14.
ReplyDeleteLots of memories about parades, and marching in a couple in my Red Cross Volunteen uniform. Seven or eight of my ten uncles served (one was a POW in some Asian country), and a couple of cousins were in Vietnam, but thankfully they all came home. My grandfather was a Boy Scout leader, so he always marched with the troops in town. Since he was sexton of the big Catholic cemetery in Hamilton, and lived adjacent to the graveyard, we saw lots of activity at the gravesites next-door while everyone in the family observed the day together at their house.
The town cemetery that served the non-Catholics was across the street, and a section was, and still is, reserved for fallen service members. One of my high school classmates lost her son in Afghanistan, and I wonder if he is buried there.
Flag Day is another one I'll have to research, Karen! Did you grow up on Ohio? I'm curious given the mention of the Catholic cemetery and the non-Catholic cemetery.
DeleteYes, I grew up forty miles from Cincinnati, and have never lived anyplace else. There are Catholic cemeteries, Jewish cemeteries, and just down the street from us is one where mostly black veterans were buried, decades ago. The cemetery was in bad shape, very overgrown and with badly vandalized headstones, and a kid up the street got it back in shape as his Eagle Scout project. He got the refurbishment started, and someone else has maintained it since then.
DeleteWe have a small cemetery on our farm in Kentucky, as do many of the old farms in that area. Our friends have three separate plots, including one they found out has the remains of a black farmer who soldiered in the Civil War, and who owned that part of the farm. Our friends did a ton of research and found the family now living, and they invited them to come down for a Memorial Day ceremony, a few years ago. I was there, and got to speak with those who came, two different sets of family, who were unaware of each other prior to that day. They were well-educated, and one of the women had done an enormous amount of research into her ancestors. She brought remarkable photos and clippings of family history. One of the photos she had, of a great grandmother from about the 1930's, looked nearly identical to her newfound cousin. It was eerie.
Oh, that's heartbreaking Edith.
ReplyDeleteI remember when it was decoration day when I was a little girl -- there was a town parade, and we all marched as a pack of little kids. With all the dogs. Very nostalgic.
My dad is now buried at Arlington national Cemetery, and I think about that today…
Weather is terrible here today as well… But we might walk down to the cemetery that's in our neighborhood, which is circa 1800s or earlier…
And, of course, being in Indianapolis girl, memorial day and into the 500 mile race, with it's not only the cars, but the jet flyovers and it national anthem and patriotic pomp and circumstance.
We do live in complicated times -- and memorial day is a good time to remember our perseverance. And all the sacrifices.
All of these mentions of parades makes me wonder if there are any in my neighborhood in Seattle. It's cloudy at the moment, but amazingly enough, I don't think there will be rain today and perhaps some good-parade watching weather.
DeleteI've never been to Arlington National Cemetery, but it must be quite an experience, even if you don't have a loved one buried there.
Oh, it's--chilling. Shocking. Impressive. And so sad, row after row. it was freezing, mid-January, the day we were there. It was like being na black and white movie, except for the flags.
DeleteIt's a must see, especially to the Tomb of the Unknowns. The guards there dedicate a certain number of years to their lives for this job; they do not smoke, or drink, and they live in the barracks there at Arlington. They study for months before they are allowed to guard, and there are all sorts of uniform protocols and rules about how they stand, etc. It's fascinating to learn about.
DeleteEach of the small local towns has a memorial to veterans. Ours is in Memorial Park, on Memorial Drive. The neighboring town's is in the entrance to the town cemetery. There's a parade every year in both places. I don't go any more, but I reflect at home about family members who served. My Grandpa Church in the trenches of the Western Front in WWI, my dad in New Guinea and the Philippines in WWII. My great-however-many-times Grandpa O'Bryan, trying to get his pension papers straightened out after the War of 1812; poor Isaiah Church and his brother John Church were the youngest of five brothers who fought in the Civil War. Isaiah was just twenty when he and his brother were captured in their first battle--both were sent to Camp Douglas near Chicago, where Isaiah died of typhoid fever in November 1864. Their older brother William was my grandpa's grandfather. Like Edith, I don't think of glory and flags waving, but ponder so many lives ended, altered by war.
ReplyDeleteThat's a tremendous tradition of service in your family, Flora. I can see why the solemn overtones of the day take precedence with so much family sacrifice to contemplate.
DeleteWe had a small Veterans' memorial on my grade school campus when I was a child and we decorated it on the Friday before Memorial Day. It was a solemn ritual. The High School band would supply someone to play Taps and three students would lay flowers. On the day itself we had parade to the town square where the official Veterans' memorial was located. The parade had floats, marching bands, the works. That was followed by an evening picnic and a fireworks show at a nearby high school stadium. Nearly everyone had lost family members in WWII and/or Korea, it was before Viet Nam. Families would share memories of loved ones lost and fathers swapped tales of the battles they had fought often falling silent when we kids would try to drop our ears into the conversation.
ReplyDeleteThe town I live in now has nothing planned. The VFW decorated the the War Memorial earlier in the week.
Today is the perfect day to remember that freedom is not free.
And now it's interesting to think about all the young veterans we have from our most recent wars. Unfortunately, there's a whole new group of families who may be swapping tales and sharing memories today.
DeleteIt seems different today, Ingrid. My husband and I were involved with training Marine recruits until recently. These were young men and women who enlist in high school and we worked with them to pass the very stringent physical tests that are required before they take their final testing and move on to basic training. The enlisted men who came to our facility to work with them had all seen combat (as had my husband in Viet Nam) and even off duty few stories were swapped. I don't think war is more brutal now, but something, perhaps in the training, has changed and created a distance.
DeleteIt's Decoration Day always for me. During WWII, my father, two uncles and an aunt were all serving. I was a year old four days before Pearl Harbor, and I do have a memory of those war years, particularly from 1943 onward, playing Germans and Japanese with the neighborhood kids, all armed with cap guns, running up the flag in the front yard with my grandmother and learning to say the pledge of allegiance. Grandma, who was chairwoman of the Nemeha Country Democratic Committee, thought it was hysterical when I pledged allegiance to the "republicans" for which it stands.
ReplyDeleteWhen the end of May came to NE Kansas, everything was blooming, all at once. Lilacs, wisteria, mock orange, spirea, poppies, hollyhocks. My grandmother collected quart canning jars, cut armloads of flowers, and off we went to decorate the family graves. The only military ones were from earlier wars, back to the Civil War, but none of those were OUR family, only had so many fruit jars you know.
She also took me to a cemetery in another town, to make sure I understood I had another set of grandparents, one who died before I was born, one just after. Now I wonder who decorates those graves? There is no family left in the area except a couple of distant cousins I suppose. This on so important ritual of my childhood is no longer extant.
I asked Julie yesterday if we we taking flowers to her parents', sister and aunt's grave. She looked a little thoughtful, but I know this isn't part of her tradition. So I don't know what we will do. Frederick Douglass and Susan B Anthony are buried a couple of miles away. Maybe they'd like a visit. It is the custom to leave coins for Mr. Douglass, a few pennies, small change. I wonder what happens to that money?
We are starting our own food tradition at least, Navajo Tacos for dinner tonight. Come on over. I make some mean fry bread.
A childhood favorite book, Emily of Deep Valley ( related to but not part of the Betsy-Tacy books) begins with a Memorial Day just like what you describe. Minnesota, 1912. And ends with another one.
DeleteYour pledge is hilarious, Finta! Did any of us know what we were saying when we recited it in elementary school?
DeleteFinta, we're there! And leave a few coins from me, okay?
DeleteAnd Ingrid, I do remember: and to the republic, for Richard Stands.
(And "Through the night with a light from a bulb." But that's a different blog.)
Lovely traditions. In our town there's always a Memorial Day march (my daughter was in the high school marching band) to the cemetery and a memorial service. After that picnics. Today it's pretty gloomy and just breaking 50 degrees so I'm home making soup and enjoying my grandbabies who are here with their parents (they're okay, too) for the long weekend.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a perfect way to spend the day, Hallie!
DeleteMemorial Day is a difficult holiday for me. How do I honor those who were courageous, and selfless, and doing the right thing as they saw it, without honoring what they were participating in? How do I appreciate the sacrifice of someone who killed as many as possible before dying? With wars seemingly fought for no reason other than to enrich certain people and extend their power, how do I celebrate the participants? Was this holiday created to garner public support for more wars? How do I hold to principles without being cynical?
ReplyDeleteI think intelligent people know how to hold two opposing ideas in tension with each other. You can honor the courage and patriotism of the men and women who volunteered their lives in defense of our country, while still scorning the greedy politicians who waste that sacrifice for petty, venal ends. I believe it is an equally patriotic duty we all share to hold our politicians accountable, and not allow them to rush into war on flimsy excuses and greedy grabs for resources. We do need people who will stand for our country, even if it means dying. We don't need people why cry wolf and send young soldiers to die every time the wolf-criers want a little more oil.
DeleteJim, what little research I did suggested that Decoration Day was created as a day of remembrance. Has that changed over time? Perhaps. I understand you being of two minds; ideally, all Americans would give more thought to the terrible price of war, which seems to be disproportionately paid by certain members of our society.
DeleteMarched in parades as both a Girl Scout and later, in high school band. wonderful small town traditions that still exist - friends took us to one in their Hudson Valley town a few years ago. Today it is raining hard in New York city so small family barbecue gets moved indoors. Jim Collins hit a dilemma for this day: honoring the dead who did their duty, as they saw it, and knowing how senseless most (not all) wars turn out to be. Viet Nam generation here. While I was out protesting, boys form my high school were there, fighting for no very good reason, cause their fathers and the president said they should
ReplyDeleteI imagine that many of us, on JRW at least, face the same dilemma, Triss. Remembrance? Celebration? Both? It can be tricky to wade through all of that.
DeleteI'll admit I have a problem, each year, understanding the difference between the current Memorial Day focus of military and veterans, and Veteran's Day, which comes along later in the year.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was growing up, Memorial Day was simply for remembering friends and relatives who had passed on, with a visit to the cemetery, and then the start-of-Summer barbecue (now called "grilling"). We watched the National Memorial Day Concert last night, and it was a pure military, those-who-served program.
I have a minor complaint with the way the military has hijacked all our national holidays. Must we only honor those who fought for our country on Memorial Day? Or can we honor the pioneers who fought equally hard to carve our country out of the wilderness at the same time? Or, take July 4. Independence Day, in my mind, ought to be about "We the People" who were bold enough, and enlightened enough, to believe that we could govern ourselves without the need of a king. These days, with our "we honor those who served" patriotism, we turn service to our nation into something other people do, and never bother to ponder what our own patriotic role ought to be.
DeleteI did a little research about Veteran's Day. According to the History Channel:
Delete"On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as “the Great War.” Commemorated as Armistice Day beginning the following year, November 11th became a legal federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to American veterans of all wars."
Gigi, I think honoring our military every which way is not their action. I honestly think it stems from guilt. Soldiers and veterans from the Vietnam war era were treated poorly and people are still trying to make up for that and ensure the current bunch aren't subjected to it.
DeleteWe do put out our flag to honor those who served. But my family never had any special Memorial Day (or Decoration Day) rituals. My dad was too old to fight in WWII, and my brother a little too old to have been called out for Viet Nam. So we have a quiet day here, although we will probably cook out, since it's NOT raining.
ReplyDeleteI find Remembrance Day in the UK (and Canada) truly moving, much more so than Memorial Day.
That's when people don the poppy, right Debs?
DeleteI was in London for Remembrance Day in 2000. We went to church at St Paul's Cathedral and the military were lining up to attend. It was very moving.
DeleteI was in England some years ago just before Nov 11. People wearing poppies everywhere I went and small observances. ON Nov 11, I was at Heathrow airport when the whole place went silent at 11 AM. Very touching and I will never forget it. Far more of a living holiday there than in US.
DeleteWhen I lived back in CT, I always marched in the parade and then it was the annual neighborhood cookout. Now that I'm in AZ, it's a bit too hot for parades but there are ceremonies to remember those who gave their lives in service of our country and the cookout tradition continues. Thank you for posting the history of the day, I knew it only became a federal holiday in the late sixties but I had no idea so many national cemeteries had been created post Civil War or that it had begun as Decoration Day.
ReplyDeleteIt's a little appalling that I knew so little about a major national holiday. See above for more info on Veteran's Day!
DeleteI actually think I remember the term Decoration Day being used by my parents when I was growing up (I was born in 1954). Of course, they probably grew up with it being called Decoration Day. It was a tradition for my parents to take flowers, most of which were from our yard, to the graves for loved ones. My mother would fix the flowers in containers made for the occasion, with my father involved, too. It was very serious business. As the youngest, I usually was dragged along on these yearly cemetery trips. But, I didn't really mind it, as I seem to have always had a thing for cemeteries and the history that goes with them. I learned more family history during those visits than at any other time. Placing flowers on my grandparents' graves, both sets dead before I was born, seemed like a special connection of sorts. I rather wish that I didn't live so far away from our family plots, so that I could still participate in this ritual. It seems to me that people don't focus on that part of Memorial Day much anymore. It's all about the cookouts and water sports. However, if it does bring families together, that's still good. I admit that we usually cookout as our way of marking the holiday, although I do try and take time to think about our soldiers and my loved ones who are no longer with us.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many people still use flowers from their homes? I didn't grow up in a house that boasted a colorful garden, so we always got "cemetery baskets" from the local garden store.
DeleteI wonder that, too, Ingrid. I don't think it's the same sort of family ritual that it used to be, which is too bad.
DeleteHave you seen this video from Great Big Story about the man in Florida who restores old gravestones. They call him the Cemeterian. It's very cool.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/greatbigstory/videos/1692841771018249/