Decoration Day 2020: Poppies
In the spring of 1915, the combatants of the “War to End All Wars” fought the Second Battle of Ypres, a bloody, ultimately inconclusive battle in western Belgium. Ypres was noteworthy as the first incident of troops from a former colony (Canada) defeating an imperial European power (Germany) on European soil. It also marked Germany’s first use of poison gas on the Western Front. On May 7, 1915, Lt. Col. John McCrae presided over the funeral of his friend and fellow Canadian soldier, Lt. Alexis Helmer, who was killed in the battle.
After Helmer's funeral, McCrae wrote a poem and promptly discarded it. Thankfully, McCrae's fellow soldiers retrieved the poem and it was published later that year in a British magazine. "In Flanders Fields" became one of the most famous literary works to arise from the war. It reads as follows:
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.
Moina Michael was a professor at the University of Georgia who volunteered with the Young Women's Christian Association during the war. In the 1918, she read McCrae's poem and was inspired to wear a red poppy as a message of remembrance for the valiant men and women who served in the bloody war. In 1921, after observing a need, Michael began to sell silk poppies to raise funds for disabled servicemen. The American Legion Auxiliary and Royal British Legion both adopted the poppy as a symbol of remembrance, creating the widespread use of the poppy on Memorial Day that we know so well today.
The origins of Memorial Day itself are complex and disputed, with dozens of origin stories and locations. Many different communities, both Union and Confederate, began remembrance ceremonies during and after the American Civil War. Many such ceremonies were inspired by the Decoration Day traditions of Appalachia, in which families decorated graves and cemeteries to honor their ancestors. Over time, these ceremonies grew more numerous and coalesced into a national Decoration Day tradition. After World War II, the name became Memorial Day and it became a fixed federal holiday in 1971.
Today, on Memorial Day, we honor those who have died in service of America. Every group and community marks Memorial Day in its own way--from the elaborate to the simple to the individual--which is befitting of a holiday that developed generations ago via countless Decoration Days across the country. As we mark the day, let us think of the poppy. Let us remember the passion of Moina Michael, the grief of Lt. Col. John McCrae, and the sacrifice of Lt. Alexis Helmer there on Flanders fields, where the poppies blow.