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Boalsburg calls itself the birthplace of Memorial Day , claiming that the custom of decorating soldiers’ graves began there in October 1864. While the New York Times noted that several places make similar claims, what’s not in dispute is the central role that flowers have played throughout the history of Memorial Day. In Boalsburg, three women – Emma Hunter, Sophie Keller and Elizabeth Myers – were said to have placed flowers and wreaths on the graves of men who died while serving the Union during the Civil War. The holiday grew out of the Civil War,” the Times wrote in 2023, as Americans – Northern, Southern, Black and white – struggled to honor the staggering number of dead soldiers, at least 2 percent of the U.S. population at the time.” The war ended in spring 1865. Soon after, in Charleston, S.C., at a service to commemorate the lives of Union captives buried in a mass grave, 3,000 schoolchildren led the way carrying roses. In 1866 in Columbus, Miss., women placed flowers on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers. The first national commemoration was in 1868, when Gen. John Logan, the commander in chief of an organization of Union veterans, called for May 30 to be designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” National Poppy Day Red poppies became associated with Memorial Day by way of World War I, specifically the poem In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian physician, writer and soldier John McCrae. He noticed poppies growing among the graves of soldiers buried in Belgium. In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,” he wrote, Between the crosses row on row.” The American Legion adopted the poppy as its official flower in 1920 and began distributing fabric poppies nationally in 1924. At the American Legion’s urging, Congress designated the Friday before Memorial Day as National Poppy Day. After World War II, the holiday became better known as Memorial Day and officially in 1967. Memorial Day was observed on May 30 until 1971, when it was enshrined as the last Monday of May to ensure a three-day weekend. While officially meant to honor the service and sacrifice of America’s fallen soldiers, Memorial Day has assumed broader meaning for some, who use the occasion to pay tribute to family and friends who have died. One constant remains: flowers. Flowers of Remembrance Day Perhaps no greater example exists than Arlington National Cemetery, where the nonprofit Memorial Day Flowers Foundation has placed flowers on graves since 2011. That first year, the organization had enough money to buy flowers for 10,000 of some 300,000 headstones. In 2023, the foundation announced that it could afford flowers for only half of the graves. But last-minute donations and help from the floral industry, according to Stars and Stripes , likely ensuring a flower for each grave. We are so grateful to the American public and the generosity of our floral importers, who are literally donating thousands of flowers by the pallet, to ensure our fallen military heroes are honored this year,” said Ramiro Penaherrera, executive director of the foundation. Thousands of volunteers place the flowers on the Arlington graves on Flowers of Remembrance Day, the Sunday before Memorial Day. Posted in Memorial Day Leave a Comment on Flowers have always been at the center of Memorial Day We celebrate ‘Mom’ every day at Connells Maple Lee Posted on May 2, 2024 May 7, 2024 by Neal Hannah Mom” Royer and husband, Lester, the founders of Connells Maple Lee’s sister company in Pennsylvania. Her friends called her Hanny” or Beckie” back in 1922 when Hannah Sherman of Myerstown, Lebanon County, was a senior at Elizabethtown College near Lancaster, Pa. Born in 1901, Hannah was a member of the college’s Homerian Literary Society, participated in chorus and glee club, played tennis and baseball. What can be more pleasing than a young lady who is virtuous and adorned with womanly graces?” read the text beneath her senior photo in the Etonian yearbook. She is always pleasant and scatters sunshine wherever she goes.” Hannah was pursuing a two-year pedagogical course” to become a teacher at a time when mandatory school attendance laws were driving demand for educators and providing a new career opportunity for women. ‘She will bring joy’ We predict for her a successful future, for we know that her whole heart will be in her work, whatever it may be,” the yearbook concluded, and she will bring joy into the lives of the friends she meets.” Hannah would become a first-grade teacher, marry classmate Lester Royer of Black Rock, Md., and raise a family. She would assume a new nickname, Mom,” and prove the Etonian remarkably prescient. But teaching wasn’t her true calling. Hannah, whose remarkable life would see her to age 96, would put her whole heart into the floral business. Her enduring legacy is Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts and sister company Royer’s Flowers & Gifts in Pennsylvania, which together constitute one of the most successful flower shops in American history. Hannah and Lester, a high school biology teacher, married in 1925 and had their first child in 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression. By 1937, they had three children and were living on Lester’s salary alone. Both Hannah and Lester, known as Pop,” had grown up on farms. At their Lebanon home, they grew enough produce to help feed their family and sell some to neighbors for additional income. Their son Ken, in his book Retailing Flowers Profitably,” said Hannah expanded our crop selection to include African violets, which she grew on her windowsills. The violets were sold at first by our next-door neighbor, who worked in a garment factory in Lebanon … . The addition of violets made our business a year-round enterprise rather than a summer-only produce business.” Patient and persistent Ken, who would follow his parents into the family floral business, noted that his mother started selling flowers at local farmers markets, refusing to let the initially tepid response wilt her will. Hannah, whom Ken described as patient and persistent, kept going back until business picked up. I have often reflected on this sequence...