Established after the Civil War, Decoration Day was a reunion-like event at cemeteries. Today, it’s largely disappeared into Memorial Day.
I’m walking through history right now at Linden Cemetery in rural Christian County, Missouri. Beneath this sunny sky, accompanied by birds, breeze and traffic from a nearby road, I’m thinking about May 30, 1915 when I’ve read that 500 people gathered here for Decoration Day. Ozarkers came to decorate graves with flowers, to reminisce and remember “friends and loved ones who have gone to that undiscovered country from which no traveler returns,” the local newspaper columnist noted.
In the past, Decoration Day was a big deal for cemeteries across our rural region and beyond…