Memorial Day 2008
May 26, 2008 – 1:41 pmBut I want to talk just a little about Decoration Day, as it was called when I was a child, and it was always observed on May30. If it was in the middle of the week, we would decorate family graves the previous weekend, but always we would lay wreathes while remembering our family members, whether they had been in the service or not. Decoration Day, and later Memorial Day, did not signal the beginning of the summer vacation season.
Earlier today, I suspect that many of you have heard or read about the history of Memorial Day. For those who haven’t, it’s worth knowing.
It’s difficult to know for sure who the first persons were to acknowledge a day to remember our fallen soldiers, but it surely began following the Civil War. It appears that women’s groups were decorating graves in the South prior to the formal establishment of the official proclamation in 1868, in spite of the fact that some people credit Waterloo, New York as the official birthplace.
On May 5, 1868, General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, read the official proclamation. On May 30 of that year, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers proclaim a day of reconciliation. The northern states readily accepted the day, but it was not accepted throughout the entire country until after World War I when soldiers from that war, as well as the Civil War, were included. In 1971, a law was passed proclaiming Memorial Day as a 3-day federal holiday.
You must be logged in to post a comment.