My grandmother always called it Decoration Day. She was born in 1899 and the name wasn’t changed to Memorial Day until after World War I. The remembrance day for Civil War veterans in the north has evolved into remembering all who have given their lives in military service for the U.S. But my family expanded its scope.
I remember one year, I went with her and my grandfather to the cemetery in Chillicothe, Ohio where many of our relatives are buried. The day before, they had cut what they needed from my grandmother’s swath of peonies. In Ohio during my childhood, peonies bloomed in late May and early June in almost every farmstead and home garden. They were prolific and easy to care for. After blooming in the early summer, the green leaves grew and gradually died off, allowing the plot to be mowed. They overwintered in the ground and sprouted again each spring, coming into full flower just as they were needed for Decoration Day.
At the cemetery, my grandparents cleaned the remnants of Mother’s Day offerings from vases or cans at the gravesites. They put the peonies on each family member’s grave with emphasis on those who had served in the military. I remember Grandma saying something about everyone paying a price for military service, including those left at home. I think the home sacrifices from World War II were still fresh in her mind and I know she remembered the struggles of World War I. Somewhere I have copy of the sugar ration application from one year near the end of World War II that included how much jams, jellies, preserves and fruits were planned for canning and how many people were in the family. My mother said everything was rationed by that time.
Later, Memorial Day changed for us. My grandparents moved to the country from the city and made fewer trips to Chillicothe, so the three-day weekend became a time for the first cookout of the summer, not a barbeque, a cookout with hamburgers and hot dogs over a charcoal fire. Potato salad with new potatoes and strawberry pie from the new crop of berries from a roadside stand rounded out the menu. We all enjoyed eating outside for the first time that summer, amidst the flowers and under the leafy hardwood trees.
My grandmother, Evelyn Irene Poole Hess, was a descendant of Henry Whetstone who served for Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. She taught me many things by the way she lived her life. She taught me to do the housework and then play. She taught me to love cherry cheesecake and strawberry pie. She taught me to save a salty bite for the end of the meal. And she taught me to remember those who had gone before with the certain knowledge that military service always touches an entire family. Have a blessed Memorial Day!
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