OCR Text |
Show Memorial Day May 30 Is the most beautiful and sacred of our national holidays. It la a clay of dignified addresses, exercizes ex-ercizes parades and military salutes sal-utes ail well as strewing flowers on Uie graves of soldier Originating from the custom ot bereaved Southern women of setting set-ting aside one day a year in which they laid flowers on the graves of the soldiers who had lost their lives in the Civil War, Memorial Day was decreed a holiday in- 1868 by the commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. In most states it is a legal holiday, set aside to do honor not only to those who gave their lives in the Civil Wai, but in the Spanish-American and World Wars as well. Most of the northern states celebrate cele-brate May 30 as Memorial Day. In Alabama, Florida. Mississippi and Georgia, April 26 is observed. May 10 is set aside in North and South Carolina. Since 1919, Memorial Day has ac quired an international significance. It is now observed in England and France wherever American soldiers are burled. The purpose of the day has enlarged en-larged from Its first inauguration until It Is now no longer a day for merely laying flowers on the graves of soldiers, but has become an occasion oc-casion for personal and family commemoration com-memoration as well. Wherever Memorial Day is observed, people pause each year to do honor to the memory of the loved ones |