In Honor of Memorial Day...
In honor of the Memorial Day holiday, the office of Gardner & Billing CPAs will be closed on Monday, May 30th and will reopen with summer hours on Tuesday, May 31st. ___________________________________
Memorial Day, an American holiday observed on the last
Monday of May, honors men and women who died while serving in the U.S.
military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years
following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many
Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding
family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, at least, it
marks the beginning of summer.
Early
Observances of Memorial Day
The Civil War claimed
more lives than any conflict in U.S. history, requiring the establishment of the
country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s Americans in various
towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless
fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
It is unclear where
exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have
independently initiated the memorial gatherings. Nevertheless, in 1966 the
federal government declared Waterloo, New York the official birthplace of
Memorial Day. Waterloo—which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was
chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which
businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers
and flags.
Decoration
Day
On May 5, 1862,
General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War
veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The
30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or
otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their
country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every
city,
On the first
Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National
Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and
Confederate soldiers buried there. Many Northern states held similar commemorative
events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had
made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Many Southern states, on the
other hand, continued to honor their dead on separate days until after World
War I.
Evolution
of Memorial Day
Memorial Day, as
Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost
while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found
itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to
commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars.
For decades, Memorial
Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date Logan had selected for the
first Decoration Day. But in 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday
Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to
create a three-day weekend for federal employees; the change went into effect
in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.
Memorial
Day Traditions
Cities and towns
across the United States host Memorial Day parades each year, often
incorporating military personnel and members of veterans’ organizations. Some
of the largest parades take place in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. Americans also observe Memorial Day by
visiting cemeteries and memorials. On a less somber note, many people throw
parties and barbecues on the holiday, perhaps because it unofficially marks the
beginning of summer.
