Memorial Day
Began as “Decoration Day” in the south.
Decoration Day, whether observed by families or a rural church, is steeped in Christian values and symbolism. Southern Christians, particularly Baptists of the rural South, tended to reject the autumn observances of remembering the Christian dead that focused on All Saints Day or All Souls Day (Nov. 1 and 2) as practiced by some faith denominations. Instead, they placed Decoration Day in the late spring at a time that nature itself symbolized resurrection. Newly decorated graves in springtime, all facing east to meet the Lord for the future resurrection, seemed more appropriate to these rural congregants. The custom of planting cedar trees (the evergreen cedar illustrates eternal life) or flowering trees such as dogwoods or ornamental fruit trees (symbols of resurrection) near gravesites also conveyed aspects of Christian symbolism.
Fellowship among those who observed Decoration Day reflected the words of Bible in Hebrews 10:25: "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another -- and all the more as you see the Day approaching." As they gathered together, living Christians remembered those who nourished them in the faith. Consequently, Decoration Day often provided the opportunity for family members to hold reunions during the Memorial Day weekend. Hardly an entirely somber event, Decoration Day always balanced reflection and celebration. Fellowship and a communal meal took place in tandem with the respectful graveside observance.
In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country.
The holiday was Memorial Day, and this year’s commemoration on May 28 marks the 150th anniversary of its official nationwide observance. The annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead.
Yet when General Logan established the holiday, he acknowledged its genesis among the Union’s former enemies, saying, “It was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South.”
During 1866, the first year of this annual observance in the South, a feature of the holiday emerged that made awareness, admiration and eventually imitation of it spread quickly to the North.
During the inaugural Memorial Day observances which were conceived in Columbus, Georgia, many Southern participants – especially women – decorated graves of Confederate soldiers as well as, unexpectedly, those of their former enemies who fought for the Union.
“The action of the ladies on this occasion, in burying whatever animosities or ill-feeling may have been engendered in the late war towards those who fought against them, is worthy of all praise and commendation,” wrote one paper.
Klove.com http://www.klove.com/news/2018/05/25/th ... orial-day/
and http://www.bpnews.net/37911/decoration- ... -tradition