Decoration Day

Decoration Day

Originally, it was called Decoration Day and it was observed on May 30, not the last Monday of May.

Each Memorial Day or the Sunday before, Mom would cut what flowers were in bloom. She usually had iris and bridal wreath and Gramma Austin would provide peonies. Then, with whatever kids would fit in the car and Gramma and Grampa Austin, Dad would head out to several cemeteries. There was the Lorimor cemetery where Uncle Bob was buried. This was always sad as Uncle Bob died from being struck by lightening when he was just 34, leaving a widow and two young children. Everyone would stand around the grave, solemnly, and Gramma would wipe her eyes with her pretty lace handkerchief.

Oak Hill cemetery, in southeast Union County, held the graves of Dad’s grandparents and great grandparents. This cemetery sat high on a hill with evergreen trees standing guard and we children could always find pine cones or run over and look around the Church. This cemetery wasn’t so sad as the grandparents were old when they died and the great grandparents, although a source of pride as they were some of the earliest settlers in Union County, had not been known, not even by my father. Cornwall was just a couple of miles away, and again, the great-grandparents there had died before my dad was born but the cemetery was old and interesting and we kids had plenty to look at and take in while here.

Shannon City Cemetery was another sad place as Dad’s sister, Betty Jane, was buried there. She died as a baby. It was during a bad time with Gramma and Grampa Austin. They were living at Arispe, out at Gramma Austin’s parent house, I think. Grampa had diabetes and doctors were just beginning to use insulin to treat it but you had to have money to buy it. Times were hard.

Gramma had been sick, as well as several of the children, and it was too much for baby Betty Jane when she came down with the flu. Uncle Bob, the oldest child, had been directed to go after the doctor. “Take the car and get the doctor, Bob.” In those days, the car had to be hand-cranked at the front of the car. If you weren’t careful, not thinking about what you were doing, scared for your baby sister or just unlucky, the crank would come back and break your arm. So, along with the sickness inside, there was Uncle Bob outside with a broken arm. Things were very bleak that winter and when wee Betty Jane died, she was buried at Shannon City, probably driven over in a little casket in the trunk of the car that broke Uncle Robert’s arm. It was very sad to think of a baby being in that cemetery and sad to hear the details of that long winter.

There were other family members in the Shannon City cemetery too. One, more distant, relative’s family had not had enough money for a grave stone so the survivor, a daughter, I think, had marked the grave with colored, broken glass. Originally, the grave had looked gay and bright with the bits of glass outlining the plot and catching the sun on a beautiful spring day but when I was a child, one had to get down and look closely to see some of the bits. A few years ago, Granny and I stopped out there and I could not find the grave. Could not see a loved ones grave decorated, for lack of something more substantial, with many – thousands -- of multi-colored pieces of glass so that their loved one would be remembered.

In early May I will take a basket of pretty flowers to my father's grave and will put out an American flag that Lanny asks me to display for his patriotic, conservative father-in-law. I will stop every two or three days and talk to my daddy and water the basket until the cemetery’s deadline for decorations, shortly after Memorial Day. I do this because I want to; I do it gladly.

Lanny and I will drive out to Mt. Zion Cemetery. We will carry artificial flowers and two flags to decorate his parents’ grave, LaRene and Dale. After honoring and remembering his good parents, we will stroll up and pay homage to his grandparents, Shorty and Mary. Then we’ll go to the west end and visit the stone of his Great Grandmother Eva Hofmeister. She died when her twin boys were 1-1/2 or 2 years old. She must have been RH negative, a dangerous situation in those days and while pregnant, or after delivering her third child, her own antibodies attacked her and she died too young along with her babe. Her parents are there too, Norman and Mary Keesler Walker. They came to Iowa from Ohio to live near their daughter. In their photos they look like good, caring folks – hardy stock. Norman lived to be 85 years and Great-great Grandmother Mary Walker died at 92 years.

There are other family members there. There are several Maxedon stones but I would need my family history charts to make the family connection; however, this year I tell Morghan Grace, age 7, that the Maxedon’s were family. It is my duty to plant some seeds, to make some memories with young ones so that in future years, Morghan Grace can take little ones around and show them the old folks, the old stones and tell them about the five generations of family here, at Mt. Zion.

In 2006, I do not keep the tradition, as I should. Granny and I wander the country at odd times, stopping at cemeteries in Union County. We don’t carry in the peonies, bridal wreath and iris of yore but just drive through and remember the old ones with some conversation and thoughts. We might stop and get out of the car and look at a stone here or there -- and reminisce of lost family or trips in years past. In our own way, we remember and celebrate Decoration Day.