Now & Then | Cemetery Decoration Day was different 60 years ago

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

From early in my life, my parents took me to Decoration Day ceremonies at the cemeteries in late May.

Decoration Day is called Memorial Day today, but 60 years ago we were still thinking of it as Decoration Day. I remember going to Pea Ridge City Cemetery, to Pratt Cemetery on the Pea Ridge Battlefield, where my great-grandparents John and Malinda Nichols and my Aunt Anna Nichols are buried, also to Elm Springs Cemetery, where many of my Grandmother Ellen’s Holcomb family are buried, and Twelve Corners, where some of my great-grandmother Malinda Hall’s family are buried, and to Bentonville City Cemetery where many of my mother’s family, Clements and Dunnaways, are buried. Decoration Days were big community events, publicized in the newspapers,announced in the churches and large crowds of people turned out for them.

Especially at the Pratt Cemetery, if my memory is telling me correctly, the Decoration Day ceremonies began about noon with a big pot-luck meal held outside under the trees. There was no building on the Pratt Cemetery grounds in those days.

After the meal, we would have a service much like a church service, with hymn singing, Scripture readings and a special speaker who spoke on remembering those who have lost their lives in our country’s wars. There would be flags flying and flags placed on thegraves of the veterans and of those who had died in the wars. At the time, we were just past the ending of World War II, and the sense of the great losses of young men in that war from 1941 to 1945 were still fresh on our minds. After the program, we would put flowers on the graves, and the adults would spend an hour or so just visiting with friends and family while we kids played games.

Interestingly, in those days what artificial flowers were available were awful looking, very artificial and bad, so we always put out real cut flowers. The way we thought of it then was that the fragile nature of the flowers represented the beautiful, fragile nature oflife itself. The flowers were not supposed to last a long time. Those who wanted flowers on the graves in a lasting way would usually plant some enduring flowers beside the gravestones.

A peony planted years ago beside my great-grandparents’ graves at Pratt Cemetery keeps coming back year after year, blooming in May.

Looking at a little history, Decoration Days were initiated in the 1860s shortly after the Civil War. At first, there was no proclaimed national holiday, but many communities across the country began holding special programs honoring the war dead. There were even organizations of widows and bereaved mothers dedicated to decorating the graves of Civil War soldiers who had lost their lives in that war.

At first, Decoration Day observances were held primarily in the northern states, but the southern people initiated similar programs held at different times. When Decoration Day became a nationalobservance, the date chosen was May 30 each year.

That was changed in the 1970s, when Memorial Day was designated for the last Monday of May, with the idea of having Memorial Day follow a weekend for a three-day holiday. Some people feel that that change has led to a loss of focus on the original intent of Memorial Day, which was to remember and honor veterans and those who lost their lives in our country’s wars.

I remember a Memorial Day service at Pea Ridge in the late 1940s when I had a job to do as part of the ceremonies. The program called for Mr. Felix Harris, Roger Harris’s father, to play “Taps” onhis trumpet. I was to help him hear his cue, which was supposed to sound at a certain point in the program. He and I were situated under a tree on theDr. Chris Walker property, just across the fence from the northeast edge of the cemetery. The speakers and the crowd were several yards from us, out in the old section of the cemetery. The problem was that neither of us ever heard our cue. After speculating for awhile about what we should do, Felix decided to go ahead and play “Taps.” I actually never knew if our music fit in at a good point in the ceremony.

At the conclusion of that program, a military honor guard fired a 21-gun salute, so all came to a resounding closing.

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Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 06/02/2010