by Patrice Johnson

The stakes of the bloody Civil War couldn’t have been higher. If the Confederates won, the nation would be rift in two, and the Confederacy, founded on slavery, would emerge as a separate nation. If the Union Army prevailed, the economic foundation of the plantation-based South would be destroyed. Brothers were fighting brothers, and one of every four young men who trooped off to war died. Grave sites dotted the countryside, and before the war would finally grind to a close, approximately 620,000 soldiers would lay dead from combat, accident, starvation, and disease.

According to the Historical Society of Michigan and its Michigan History Magazine, “Ella and Josephine May were in the thick of it. The girls—ages 8 and 13—were moving through enemy territory with Michigan’s Second Infantry Regiment. Their father, Franklin, was the regiment’s chaplain. As an officer, he was allowed to bring his family along.

Ella, Josephine, and their mother, Maria, had followed the chaplain from their home in Kalamazoo to Virginia. In Alexandria, Maria, who served as an unofficial nurse to the regiment, smuggled badly wounded Union soldiers into the city’s hospital for treatment. For her efforts, she was called “an angel of mercy from God.”

THE DECORATION BEGINS

On April 13, 1862, the one-year anniversary of the start of the war, the Mays were billeted in Arlington Heights, Virginia. Ella and Josephine walked around the grounds of a large estate—likely owned by Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee—and gathered wildflowers. With their hands full of blossoms, they came upon a grave of a soldier who died in a battle nearby. The girls placed flowers on top of it to honor the man who gave his life to save the Union.

On their way home, they picked more flowers and put them on all the graves they could find. When they told their mother, she decided to join them.

The next day, the Mays and friend Sarah Nicholas Evans covered 13 graves—both Union and Confederate—with flowers.

THE PRACTICE IS REPEATED

In 1863, two years into the war and again on April 13, they did the same thing, and the year after that, too. As the war slogged into its third year, they visited Fredericksburg and other battlegrounds in Virginia. People began to talk about what the family was doing and emulated their actions. Soon the idea of honoring fallen warriors spread to other states. There was no shortage of graves, and the war labored on.

The girls didn’t get a chance to lay flowers on the fourth anniversary of the war’s beginning because Lee surrendered his troops several days before. Michigan’s Second Infantry Regiment had participated in the campaign that brought victory to the Union Army.

By summer 1865, the regiment was mustered out of service, permitting the May family to return to Kalamazoo. Franklin May went back to his work as a Methodist minister, and Maria and their daughters settled into the lives they had led before the war took them away.

As the years passed, Ella finished school and Josephine developed her homemaking skills. Out East, though, where their father had served, the girls’ practice of decorating graves continued and to grow.

Congress made Decoration Day a federal holiday in 1888. Because of this law and the kindness of two young girls from Michigan, we now observe a single holiday—renamed “Memorial Day”— across the nation.

Adapted from “Memorial Day: How it all began,” Jackson Citizen Patriot, May 24, 2015, as excerpted from the Historical Society of Michigan, nonprofit publisher of Michigan History magazine.

Information from the families

Thank you to the many families who submitted background information about their deceased veteran loved ones. Below are the details:

Anderson, Robert Donald. Oct. 16, 1926 to Mar. 16, 2011. Served in Navy, Army, and Air Force, totalling 24 yrs. of service. Participated in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam conflicts.

Beihn, Maurice John. Died in October 1967 Served in U.S. Marine Coprs from 1967 to 1967 during Vietnam war. He had a passion for the people he served as well as the people he served with.

Donohue, John Martin. Aug. 4, 1950 to Sept. 16, 1968. Served in Vietnam. Advance combat training, jungle warfare, helicopter 2nd amphibious training. Honors: Honor platoon #341 of the third Battalion Marine Corps, Purple Heart, Republic of Vietnam Service Medal and Battle Star, National Defense Service Medal, Military Merit Medal, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Marksman Medal.

Fletcher, Carl Berlin. Jul. 4, 1931 to Dec. 26, 2016. Served in the Korean War 23rd Infantry. Awarded the Korean War service medal with three bronze stars and the combat infantry badge. He was a light truck driver and fought in the Battle of Chipyong-ni.

Hamlin, Jack Wayne. Oct. 13, 1950 to Dec. 18, 2015. Served in the Army in Vietnam. Received the Army commendation medal for meritorious achievement and the air medal for more than 25 aerial missions over hostile territory.

Laws, Richard Allyn. May 1, 1923 to Sept. 21, 2016. Served in the Pacific theater as a paratrooper. Rank: Staff Sergeant. Awarded Bronze Star and Purple heart.

Loso, James. Feb. 29, 1944 to June 10, 1967. Army. PFC. Died while serving in Vietnam conflict. Casualty Long An Province, South Vietnam.

Marshall, Arnold. Korea – Army 1950-1955.

Marshall, David. June 11, 1937 to Aug. 10, 1963. Korea – SP5 Army.

Marshall, Edward. Feb. 23, 1934 to Mar. 7, 2009. Korea – CPL U.S. Army.

Ruggles, Charles A. Nov. 4, 1989 to Dec. 12, 1970. WWI – PFC Medical Department.

Salyer, Charles Edgar. July 15, 1925 to Feb. 2, 1987. Gunner’s Mate Third Class. Served in US Navy 9/22/1943 to  3/14/1946 during WW2. Was present at Normandy Beach invasion. Received Asiatic Pacific Medal, American Area Medal, Victory Medal.

Sebold, Ralph Harry. Nov. 1923 to Jan. 1, 1971. Master Sergeant in WWII. Served in the European theater. Drove a jeep for Colonel Sperry. After a friend gave Sebold a photograph of dead concentration camp bodies piled high at Mauthausen, Germany, Sebold wrote, “One can hardly believe that people could become so inhumane.”

Smith, Michael Loren. Nov 11, 1965 to Jan. 28, 2010. Served in WWII in the Army from 1984-1988. He went to 101st Airborne. Smith was also a mechanic sent to Korea to guard the DMZ zone and a guard at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Teachout, Ralph J. Nov. 7, 1923 to Dec. 26, 1998. WWII – Army – South Pacific.

Weddon, Edward R., M.D., Feb. 12, 1924 to June 9, 2009. During WWII, Medical Corpsman Weddon served in the third army with General Patton and was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism after giving aid to a wounded U.S. soldier while under fire by German machine guns. Weddon was also awarded five battle stars for his service during major battles in Normandy, North France, Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe.

Wireman, James Henry (Henry James). September 9, 1936 to December 31, 2010. Served in the United States Navy during Peacetime Service. Traveled across the world during service including being stationed in Japan.

Wisman, Douglas Dempsey. Apr. 19, 1918 to June 9, 2002. Served in WWII as Sergeant in the 8th Army Air Force, radio operator with the 44th Bombardment Group, B-24 heavy bombers stationed at Shipdham Air base, England throughout the war.

Honoring deceased former members of Mackinder-Glenn Post 510

Glenn Post 510 At one time, the following veterans were members of the Mackinder-Glenn Post 510 and are interred here in Stockbridge or at other cemeteries