“Your silent tents of green, we deck with fragrant flowers. Yours has been the suffering, the memory
shall be ours." ~ Longfellow
Twas a pleasant Sunday afternoon
in the fall of 1864. Nestled within the Allegany’s
scenic foothills lay a quaint colonial village known for contributing the
highest number of volunteers per capita to the Union army.
A pretty teenage girl named Emma Hunter and her friend
Sophie Keller gathered some flowers to place on the grave of Emma’s father. Dr. Reuben Hunter, whose body was buried in
the Boalsburg cemetery, had died of yellow fever while treating wounded
soldiers only a few weeks before.
Along the way the girls met Mrs. Elizabeth Myers. Her young son, Amos, had been killed during
the Battle of Gettysburg and was buried in the same graveyard. Learning where the girls were heading, Mrs.
Myers asked to join them.
The young girls and their new friend knelt at both graves: a
tearful girl honoring her officer father, a mother paying respects to her
enlisted-man son, each with a basket of flowers which she had picked so
carefully and lovingly.
Mrs. Myers spoke proudly about what a fine young man her son
had been; how he’d left the family farm when the War broke out and fought
bravely for the Union Army.
The daughter respectfully placed a few of her flowers on the
son’s grave. His mother in turn laid
some of her freshly cut posies on the father’s grave. Weeping in that burial ground where Mount
Nittany guards those fallen heroes, mutual sorrow sealed their friendship.
They agreed to meet again the following year, not only to
honor their own two loved ones, but others who might have no one left to pray
at their lonely graves. During the
months that followed, they discussed their idea with friends and villagers.
The following year, what had been planned as a little
informal meeting of two women turned into a community service. All Boalsburg was gathered there, a clergyman
preached a sermon, and every grave in the little cemetery was decorated with
flowers and flags; not a single one was neglected.
It seemed such a fitting way of remembering those who had
died that it became an annual event in Boalsburg. Soon neighboring communities adopted a
similar plan of observing “Decoration Day” each spring.
It’s first ‘official’ recognition
came on May 30, 1868, when Gen. John Logan, National Commander of the Army of
the Republic, proclaimed it as a day to decorate the graves of Civil War
soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
By 1890 it was recognized by all the northern states. The South honored their dead on separate days
until after World War I, when the holiday changed to honor any American soldier
who had died in defense of this country.
Memorial Day had been celebrated in every state on the last Monday in
May since 1971.
Teach us, Lord, the best way to pay an
unpayable debt is to show with our lives that we didn’t forget. Amen
