Page 30 - Voices-2022.05

GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE
May Their Memory Be Eternal
Paul C. Fanning, DTM
I honestly cannot help it. My love of history
and being someone who has chosen the role of
historian as an avocation cries out to share little
tidbits of information or stories about some
event, place, or person in the development of
this country and our world. Thus, Armed Forces
Day and Memorial Day shout to be heard and to
be understood in their original place in history.
Then throw in Veteran’s Day and we have major
confusion as to what, why, and how we celebrate
these days beyond the mere fact two of them are
national holidays and the third an observance.
Are you ready? Sit back, relax, and read on fellow
Toastmasters as I illuminate the difference and
the commonality of these days.
By the stroke of a pen, a new holiday was
added to this nation’s calendar, and it happened
within my lifetime. The day was to be called
“Memorial Day” and was to be celebrated on
the last Monday of the month of May. In 1967 it
became “official” after almost 100 years of being
a day called Decoration Day on the 30th of May.
Decoration Day began on both sides of the
Mason-Dixon Line (The South and the North)
as a way to recognize the memory of those
soldiers who had fallen in the Civil War—this
nation’s bloodiest conflict where over 600,000
men in blue and gray gave their lives for “the
nation” they so loved. Ladies of the South and
30 ONE COMMUNITY
the North had begun during the war to decorate
the graves of the fallen. No more than twenty-
five communities claim to be the birthplace of
Decoration Day, but Boalsburg, Pennsylvania
claims that 1863 was the year that three women—
Sophie Hall, Elizabeth Myers, and Emma
Hunter—began decorating the grave of Hunter’s
father. The reality is that we will never know who
was “first,” yet by 1868 it had become a common
event at the numerous cemeteries, hosted by the
women’s auxiliaries of the Confederate or Union
veterans’ groups. One must also remember that
those who served the South were not considered
U.S. citizens and it was not until 1975 that Robert
E. Lee (and later Jefferson Davis) had their
citizenship restored. Did you know that many
former confederate soldiers and officers found
opportunity in Oregon to “blend” in? Whole
communities like Portland and Hillsboro saw
these men become upstanding and politically
important citizens of their new communities. I
caution all to remember the Vietnam War taught
us that we must separate the “war” from the
“warrior” and honor their courage and sacrifice.
My earliest memory of a Decoration Day
(then) or Memorial Day (now) was my own father,
a U.S. Navy active-duty corpsman carrying
the U.S. flag in Dormont, Pennsylvania near
Pittsburg. He looked spiffy in his dress blues with