Day of Remembrance

The local cemetery in the Heights was a shady, welcoming place when I was young. The gravestones I passed on my bike, back and forth to our downtown, were names I memorized without any awareness of who they were.

Aaron Webster (1775-1823), one of the Heights’ first settlers, who named our town Auburn, dedicated the property as a burial site.

Henry J Adams (1829-1907), who owned the farm that included streets named for his family.

Grover M Hill (1888-1918), Private First Class, 120th Machine Gun Battalion, 32nd Division, American Expeditionary Forces, killed in France during World War I.

He was not the only military hero buried in our cemetery, and I remember Memorial Day parades, followed by a somber celebration in the cemetery to mourn those who died serving our country, marking their gravesites with flags and honoring them with a 21-gun salute.

Memorial Day, our federal holiday to remember every deceased service man and woman.

“That Nation which respects and honors its dead, shall ever be respected and honored itself.” – Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Edmund B. Whitman, 1868

In 1868, Army Commander-in-Chief John Logan named May 30th as Declaration Day to honor Union soldiers who died in our Civil War, and Mary Ann Williams, an early proponent of the holiday, began the custom of adding flowers to the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers.

After the world wars, this day of remembrance, Memorial Day, honored all U.S. military who died in service of every war—wars WWI and II, Vietnam, Korean, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We show our respect and gratitude by visiting cemeteries, and placing flags and flowers on the graves of our U.S. military.

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…

(In Flanders fields – John McCrae, poet, physician, Canadian Lt. Col. WWI)

Dr. McCrae wrote his memorable poem for a close friend who was killed in the fighting. Wild poppies were blooming between the wooden crosses marking those graves, which is why poppies are sold by veterans to honor Memorial Day and all who serve in the military.

I never knew my Uncle Earl. He was lost at sea in WWII when his plane was reported crashing into a mountain in New Guinea.

SCHAFFER, Earl J, Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class, USN, from Michigan, location New Guinea, missing, date of loss June 19, 1944 (WW2), Manila American Cemetery.

May every life lost in service to our country be remembered with gratitude, and their lives be given meaning with every freedom we know today.