THE WAUPACA POST

May 23, 1991

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

            From the Waupaca Record, May 23, 1912, comes this story about the origin of Memorial Day.

            Early in 1866, just after the close of the Civil War, Mrs. Mary A. W. Howard, widow of a Confederate officer, suggested the setting apart of a day for placing flowers on the graves of Confederate soldiers, and the for appropriate memorial exercises.

            This idea was received with general approval, and on April 26, 1866, it was made the first Confederate Memorial observance.  This southern idea appealed to the sentiments of the men and women of the north.  In 1868, General John A. Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army, issued an order calling for Memorial Day exercises May 30, 1868.

            When I was a young lad going to the Pickerel Lake school at Blaine, the school put on a program each Memorial Day at the Blaine Methodist Church.

            Memorial Day was a big day for us kids.  We had parts and songs to learn.

            The main attraction each year was Hannah Rebecca Sutherland Taylor reciting the Gettysburg Address.  She pleased the audience with her rendition until she was in her 90s.  She was born in 1838 and passed away in 1933.  Mrs. Taylor was the wife of Albert Taylor, who was a Civil War veteran.  She remembered all about the Civil War, and had many memories of it.  She still wrote poetry while she was in her 90s.

            After the church services, everyone went to the First Belmont Cemetery in one large body.  Here all the children placed flowers on the veterans’ graves.  These flowers were picked mostly the day before.  These flowers were picked in the wild, mostly violets, paint brushes, lilacs, lady slippers, or any flower that was blooming at that time of year.  In those days the people did not have the nice flower gardens.  Before the automobile, there used to be a long string of horse-drawn conveyances going to the cemetery.

            How times have changed.  The school house has long been removed, and now pine tree plantings hide the original location.  The old church that was built in 1875 has stood empty for many years now, deteriorating each day, and the old custom of Memorial Day exercises like that exists no more.

            The Waupaca Post of May 29, 1902, lists 59 Civil War veterans, one Mexican War and four Spanish-American War veterans’ graves that would be decorated on Memorial Day at the Waupaca Lakeside Cemetery.

            In 1986 I received a computer list of 429 veterans who are buried in the Waupaca Lakeside Cemetery.  It lists 163 Civil War, 147 WWI, 85 WWII, 19 Spanish-American War, four Korean, two Vietnam, two Mexican War, one War of 1812, and six peacetime veterans.

            I just received a list from the Veterans Office of all veterans who passed away from May 1, 1990, to May 1, 1991, in Waupaca County.  The rundown goes like this:  53 WWII, 10 peacetime, 13 Korean, seven Vietnam, three WWI, and one who served in both Korea and Vietnam.  This totals 87 in all.

 

            Let us not forget our veterans on this upcoming Memorial Day.