Memorial Day Poppies
Day 4 of Blogger not taking uploaded photos. Memorial Day Poppies At one time the holiday we now call Memorial Day was called Decoration Day. The first observance of Decoration Day in the United States was on May 30,1868. Flowers were placed on Union and Confederate soldiers’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery. By 1890 all the northern states recognized Decoration Day. Southern states acknowledged it after World War I when it changed to recognition of soldiers from that war. The flower that has become associated with the holiday is the red poppy. The red poppy tradition comes from when the bombardment during World War I made the soil full of rubble and lime. Poppies took hold and thrived. When the war ended and the soil healed, the poppies disappeared. The 1915 poem, “In Flanders Fields” written in observance of the fallen soldiers is by John McCrae, a Canadian physician and soldier. In Flanders Fields In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row That mark our...