Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
~ We Shall Keep the Faith by Moina Michael ~
Memorial Day has come to signify leisurely fun – a 3-day weekend, parades, family cookouts, and the official opening day to the summer season. Many of us, however, overlook the solemnness of this holiday as a day of remembrance for our veterans.
I wanted to capture the historic essence of Memorial Day and began searching for an inspiration in our vintage postcard collection. I came across one with a beautiful bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers. Perfect, I thought. As I began researching the background of Memorial Day, I serendipitously found the inspiration for today’s post – the remembrance poppy.
The red poppy as a symbol for Memorial Day began with the poem, “We Shall Keep the Faith,” written in 1918 by Moina Michael, an American professor. Her poem was in response to “In Flanders Fields”, a poem penned by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, as a tribute to a friend who died in WWI. Why red poppies, you may ask? Here’s what I learned from Wikipedia.
“The red poppies that McCrae referred to had been associated with war since the Napoleonic Wars when a writer of that time first noted how the poppies grew over the graves of soldiers.[45] The damage done to the landscape in Flanders during the battle greatly increased the lime content in the surface soil, leaving the poppy as one of the few plants able to grow in the region.”[46]
After teaching a class to disabled veterans at the University of Georgia, Moina Michael realized these men needed more help than they were receiving. Having read McCrae’s poem and then writing her own, the idea of a red poppy as a representative icon was conceived. She fundraised using silk poppies to help raise awareness and monies for the veterans and in 1924, the remembrance poppy was adopted by the American Legion Auxillary as a symbol for those who have died serving their country.
My quest to find something meaningful to share on Memorial Day began with a vintage postcard – what a wonderful coincidence to discover its floral symbol of remembrance.
And, to add a little vintage china in this post, here’s a new vintage set featuring red, white, and blue found by my friend, Trudy. Won’t it look terrific with blue & white patterns?
Resources:
In Flanders Field
Moina Michael
US Memorial Day
The Great War
