Daniel Inouye, United States senator from the State of Hawaii, was a World War II veteran and a man who championed the idea of returning our Memorial Day celebration to its original May 30 date. He first introduced the measure to the Senate in 1987; he continued on his quest each year until he died in 2012. Safe to say Senator Inouye had some pretty strong opinions about Memorial Day. He was not alone. Many veterans’ groups like the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) have shared Senator Inouye’s opinion. Their view is one we touched upon in a previous chapter of this blog: three day weekends are great, but there is an unintended effect in that for many of us, the original intent and meaning of the holiday can be easily lost.
So for today, the traditional Memorial Day date, we’ll take a look at the day’s origins. The idea always was to honor soldiers who had died in service to their country, and many communities claim the origin of Memorial Day, which, earlier on, was known as Decoration Day. President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation in 1966 naming Waterloo, New York, as the birthplace of the holiday one hundred years earlier, in 1866. But there are many who would disagree, especially folks in Warrenton, Virginia, who claim to have memorialized the graves of Civil War soldiers in 1861, or folks in Savannah or Gettysburg, who claim to have done the same in 1863 and 1864.
The first organized celebration of the day is thought to have been one in Charleston, South Carolina, organized by freed slaves, memorializing Union soldiers buried there in unmarked graves. The event was dubbed an “Independence Day of a Second American Revolution.” That was in 1865. And in 1868, a formal celebration was held at Arlington National Cemetery. The 30th of May was chosen for that celebration by the Grand Army of the Republic; Major General John Logan chose the date because he believed it was a date when flowers would be in bloom all across the country. Perfect, for the focus of Decoration Day was to decorate the graves of fallen Civil War soldiers.
By that year, Decoration Day events were being held across the country on the 30th of May, the commonality being that the day memorialized those who had lost their lives in the greatest conflict in the nation’s history. Eventually, the day came to memorialize the loss of lives from every American war, not just the Civil War.
Of course it doesn’t matter necessarily what day we celebrate Memorial Day; the important thing is we remember the spirit and dignity of the day, whether it be the 30th of May each year or the last Monday of May.
Image: A scene from a Decoration Day penny postcard sent on May 25, 1910, from Ada to her cousin Charles in New Jersey, telling him how she hopes to visit during her summer vacation in July. I hope they had a nice visit!
