In fact, Memorial Day is sometimes known as Poppy Day.
The origin of Poppy Day began with a poem written by a Canadian Colonel during WWI in which he expressed grief over the many soldiers that died on the Flander battlefields and how the poppies grow among the rows of graves.
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.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In the early 1920s two women, one in France and one in the US, began selling artificial poppies to help the orphans and those impoverish by WWI. Then in 1924 a factory was started using unemployed or disabled veterans to make the poppies for sale helping both the workers and those benefiting from the poppy sales. Even today veterans at veteran homes or medical facilities continue to make the artificial poppies.
Search out an American Legion or VFW member and buy a poppy today. And those within the Commonwealth or other counties buy a poppy on your Poppy Day.
2 comments:
Yes lest we forget Mary.
Here our Remembrance Day is on the 11th of November – the day the Great War ended – the eleventh minute, of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month….. hence the expression: ‘eleventh hour.’
What is less well known is that when John McRae wrote his poem In Flanders Fields in early May 1915 the Second Battle of Ypres had just ended and the battlefield was a thick carpet of blue cornflowers. The cornflowers however carried none of the blood red symbolism of the poppy and the following year when the Battle of the Somme began in the summer the battlefield was ablaze with poppies and the poem was changed for a flower with far more symbolism.
Only days earlier the Germans had unexpectedly introduced poison gas into warfare and the French troops holding the line fled leaving the plucky Canadians who were holding the line next to them exposed on their left. They suffered badly from gas too which no-one was prepared for. A poignant reminder of how plucky Canada came to Britain’s aid in those dark days.
On a more personal note my great grandfather and his battalion were thrown in to staunch the gap where he was machine gunned down and gassed – only three hundred yards from where John McRae was – a small world!
What a lovely post, Mary. Thank you. And to Saffron as well for contributing further information on the subject with all of us. :)
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