As you can see, this is not “The House that Aaron Built,” which I had promised today. That will appear on Wednesday instead.
It’s Memorial Day, and I want to mark it. It seems important on this day to pause and remember. The custom in our family was to go to the cemetery with flowers – not just for soldiers, but for all those we held dear. I admit to being a cemetery person. I like the quiet grounds and find it peaceful to visit the resting places of my ancestors. Here in Anchorage, because I’m so far away from the place where my own mother and father are buried, I’ll go today to the local cemetery and place a small bouquet of flowers on the graves of Bill and Frances – parents of a good friend. This cemetery in the middle of town is a busy place on Memorial Day. Families picnic near their loved ones, and visitors prune vegetation and place flags and flowers at the headstones.
In the early part of the twentieth century Memorial Day was always on May 30, and it was called “Decoration Day.”
My great-grandmother Lydia Hall wrote in her 1924 journal:
Friday, May 30 – “Pleasant. This is Decoration day. Agnes took the children in town to see the parade. They were too late. Very quiet for Wallingford. The decorations were very nice. I have been sitting out of doors for an hour this morning enjoying the sunshine and warm air. It is the first time I have been out since last fall.” – Lydia Jane Hall
For her “decorations,” my mother gathered flowers from the farm or from her own garden to make a patriotic bouquet. Red and white peonies and indigo blue baptisia were her blooms of choice, and under my mother’s skillful hands, they made a striking arrangement.
janet Hall Crump with Red Peonies
One year she painted this tiny watercolor of her bouquet. It hangs in an alcove in my house and greets me in the morning when I come downstairs to breakfast. Today when I see it I’ll pause, and remember, and thank her for this good life.
“Memorial Day Bouquet,” Janet Hall Crump, watercolor
On Wednesday: The House that Aaron Built
Sometimes it seems hard to find the time to remember in the whirl of our everyday lives. How nice to have a lovely painting by your mother of the flowers she loved to remind you of her and your life on the hill. Your Decoration Day routine is another way you have found to cement your links to the past and gain some perspective for your own experiences. Well done.
Thanks so much Mike. I feel like I’ve been doing an awful lot of remembering lately. But it was nice to pause for awhile yesterday and think about all those who have gone before us.
What a BEAUTIFUL picture of Janet!
It is a good photo of her. The color from those old slides is still so vivid. And she looks so truly happy.
Your great-grandmother continues to convey a great deal while saying very little. ” sitting out of doors…enjoying the sunshine and warm air.” She has an appealing voice. This piece brings back memories of my own, pleasant ones. Thank you, Carol. Your entries have a resonant quality. Mary
Good to hear from you Mary. Thank you for the nice words. I continue to admire my great-grandmother and the way she recorded her life. Just wish I had more from the years when she was younger.
I always read this lovely blog, it’s like a fresh breeze, but don’t often comment. Love the watercolor and the expression of gratitude to your mother.
Thank you for reading, Carol. And it’s always good to hear from you. I treasure all the watercolors my mother did. She had a nice touch with the paint.
Thank you Carol! My mom would love that gesture. And I love that photo of Janet.
How lucky we were to have our mothers in our lives for so long. My mother would have liked this photo too. I’m sure my father took it, and I love the way she’s smiling at him.
Alex and I took my little bouquet to Bill and Frances yesterday. Was thinking of you and of all our years of ice cream making on Memorial Day – our sidewalks “decorated” with rock salt.
I have many memories of going to the cemetery to prepare for Memorial Day with Janet and my mom, Barbara. It’s interesting to me how fully my mom took on those Hall traditions. Sometime over Memorial Day weekend would be the gathering of flowers (mostly by Janet) and then filling the car trunk with them. We’d go to the beautiful hillside lot at the cemetery and clean up around the stones with little grass clippers we brought with us. Janet would arrange the flowers (peonies and iris, often) into funny metal cone vases that had a spike to stick them in the ground. My job was always to go find the water spigot and haul some water. There were some years, as a teen, when I judged it as a bit of a silly practice, but mostly I liked the chance to be there–felt like it was a privilege to be one of the womenfolk who tended to such things. I usually got to hear some stories, and although she never would say much, I felt like it was a way to connect with my mom about the loss of the brother I never got to know, “Infant son of Aaron and Barbara Hall” with his tiny baby headstone.
I think you got to do this ritual more than I did, and I love your description of it. I can remember exactly where I was when my mother told me about your little brother. It just seemed impossible. I still get so sad for everyone when I see not only his grave, but Luther John’s. Hard, hard times for those families. So good that you could have this time to connect with your mom. Because it was never talked about much. Doing the flowers must have been an important way to be together and to remember.
I have been enjoying the blog so much. Thanks for your sharing of these memories. Each one brings back a childhood memory. Growing up on Whirlwind Hill has shaped me and my strong love of nature.
Hi Sue! So glad you’re enjoying the blog. I think of you often when I’m writing about Whirlwind Hill. We were so surrounded by nature there, and it was such a great way to grow up. I love seeing photos of your orchids. You really have a green thumb! Or whatever kind of thumb you need to grow orchids.