Memorial Day 2012
Memorial Day, originally known as “Decoration Day” in the South, was established on May 5, 1868 by the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. Envisioned as an opportunity for the nation to decorate the graves of the Civil War dead, General John Logan declared May 30th as the official date of commemoration, because flower gardens would be in bloom to supply bouquets to decorate the graves. The first Memorial Day ceremonies were held at Arlington National Cemetery as orphans from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home placed flowers on both Union and Confederate graves while reciting prayers and singing hymns.
Memorial Day remembrances were transmitted to me by way of my Great Aunt Mary Van Winkle, who was born on May 1, 1900. Miss Van Winkle taught English and Home Economics and, as was then the teachers’ code, she never married living out her life as a spinster. Aunt Mary collected tea cups, hand-painted porcelain and could go into her yard with a sauce pan and a paring knife to cut “greens” for the evening meal. Aunt Mary lived before the frozen TV-dinner generation of the 1950s and from a child’s perspective she made the best vanilla ice cream in an old hand-crank ice cream maker. Aunt Mary’s ice cream was as good as it was hard and long to make.
In an era when children were to be seen and not heard, Aunt Mary drew me out, asked me questions and talked to me often about the members of her family. She cataloged births and deaths; her mother and father, her sister Frances, her brother (my grandfather) Stephen, and then brothers James, sisters Sally, and Laura. Aunt Mary took me many places, including Virginia Beach where I experienced the blaze only a beach sunburn can deliver, but on Memorial Day she always took me to see Grandfather Stephen’s and Great Uncle James’ graves at Zachary Taylor National Cemetery (established 1930) in Louisville, Kentucky.
Early in the cool of that late May day, I helped Aunt Mary cut magnolias and other flowers from her garden and then put them in a glass canning jar wrapped in foil to spruce up its utilitarian use. I held the flowers in the car on the way to the cemetery as she drove to Zachary Taylor, where she always went to my grandfather’s grave first. I can hear her to this day saying, “Stephen’s grave is on the right side down from the blue spruce tree.” As she approached the grave she would kneel and be overcome by tears. It puzzled me to see her cry in that moment but now I suppose her tears were for the accrued losses attributable only to the passage of time and of things no more to be. Then, after she inspected the care the grave was receiving and deposited her floral remembrance – given from her heart and still, even in the times of florist stores, from her own garden – we would then cross the street and visit Uncle James’ grave, usually without tears, conduct inspection and pay our respects.
Aunt Mary taught me about Decoration Day. It may not mean much to people now, as it did to my aunt’s generation, as many today look forward to a three-day weekend, the opening of local pools, and retail store sales. Aunt Mary told me it was important to remember the military service and sacrifice of those who had died and passed away, but most importantly she knew how to honor the dead. She taught me to take the time to remember the fallen in defense of our country and instilled in me a respect for those who had served.
I now tell my children of this reverence and remembrance, because Aunt Mary told me and showed me how. Today, I still go to Zachary Taylor and take magnolias and flowers from my yard for the graves of our family members to show respect and reverence, and to remember those who were willing to go in harm’s way for all of us.
Aunt Mary’s dear brothers, (my grandfathers) were World War I Veterans and to honor those who died in that war, many people wear a red poppy, particularly in England. The idea for wearing a poppy to remember World War I came from Lt. Col. John McCrae, a young Royal Canadian Army surgeon, who witnessed first hand the devastating cost of the war in Belgium. Expressing his anguish from the back of an ambulance, McCrae penned his poem, “In Flanders Fields,” in 1915. McCrae was killed in action in 1918, shortly before the war ended. I have a print of a poppy in my living room, which hangs next to the mirror grandfather made and Aunt Mary gave to me. The three stanzas of Flanders Fields charge us to hold their torch of duty and remembrance high:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
In Flanders Fields.
It became even more personal to me as I married a Vietnam Veteran and as our son completed a combat tour in Iraq in 2005. We cannot – we must not – forget the sacrifices marked from all the “Flanders Fields” – the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, particularly the War Between the States, World War I & II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Shield/Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan and on a thousand other battlefields around the world. The liberty, justice, and prosperity which generations of Americans enjoy comes at a great cost. Liberty is purchased with the blood, sweat, and tears of our military veterans, particularly those who gave their lives in defense of our way of life, because liberty and justice are fragile and easily lost. Thank you Aunt Mary for teaching me to remember those who gave their last full measure of devotion and those very lives we honor on Memorial Day.
Eunice V. Ray
President
