The history I learned in school about memorial day pretty well followed the current description found on the Veterans Affairs Website. "Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country."


This version, while true, leaves out the fact that the first memorial day was started by former slaves on May, 1, 1865 in Charleston, South Carolina. They dug up the bodies of 257 Union Soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in a Confederate prison camp and worked for 2 weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. They then held a parade of 10,000 people led by 2,800 Black children where they marched, sang and celebrated. They called it Decoration Day.



 My personal history with "Decoration Day" includes fond memories of my grandmother, my mom, aunts and I sitting around the kitchen table making boxes full of carnations out of tissues wrapped around pieces of wire cut from coat hangers. We and other family members from the surrounding towns in middle Tennessee would decorate all of our family's graves, not just the veterans, at especially one graveyard where many of our relatives were buried. We had larger wreaths for our closest kin and stuck the little carnations on each of the graves of the extended family on this day. The veterans also got American flags. After the gathering at the graveyard, normally we would meet up for a pot luck dinner of delicious southern country cooking at a nearby relative's home. Talk of the passing of our kin and our very own heroic veterans was served up as well year after year as the verbal history of our family was passed down from generation to generation.


For us, Memorial day was as much of a celebration of the living to spend time together as it was a sad remembrance of those who were no longer with us. However, even us children learned with all certainty that the freedom we and others around the world enjoyed was because of the sacrifices made by those who laid under the dirt with a few flowers and flags to mark our respect and remembrance of their passing. This ritual was a small but important act that built our sense of roots and inspired our thoughts to turn to the sacrifices made on our behalf. May we never forget. 


"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson


Copyright 2014 Wanda Hope Carter all rights not otherwise assigned are reserved.

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Janice  Vicks
Interesting!
  • May 23, 2014
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Dale Barnes
I posted a blog about our Memorial day. Sarah read this over my shoulder and she commented that her family made tissue flowers as well. It must be a southern thing. lol I remember reading about this event before but had forgotten it. Thanks for the reminder and for sharing the meaning of the day.
  • May 27, 2014
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