Decoration Day and Peonies

One of the posters
I found inside my
new tote bag!

A week ago, the town where I live celebrated the second annual Indiana Peony Festival.  The peony is the official state flower but never had its own party until last year.  I dragged a friend along to stroll around Seminary Park and nose around the vendor booths.  I returned home with two 1-gallon pots of peony plants, a tote bag, and two posters.

Memorial Day and peonies are inextricably linked in my mind.  Peonies generally bloom the last week of May, just in time for Memorial Day.

Memorial Day was originally established in the former Confederate states in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868 (*See below) to remember soldiers who died during the Civil War - from both sides, Union and Confederate.

The ladies of Columbus, Georgia, began decorating the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers from their gardens, including the graves of Union soldiers, on May 30, 1866 - just one year after the end of the Civil War.  For years, the holiday was called Decoration Day, before officially becoming Memorial Day.

Here's the Peony
Trail poster.

I remember my great aunt making plans to visit the cemeteries and decorate the graves of relatives who had served in the military.  She always called it "Decoration Day," and the preferred blooms for the job were peonies - abundant, conveniently timed blooms, and gorgeous.  

When I was growing up, peonies were considered old-fashioned "grandma flowers," probably because the people who grew them were the older folks who still made the pilgrimage to the cemeteries on "Decoration Day" with tubs of cut peony blooms, and maybe because if you had any peonies in your garden, they almost certainly came from thinning the plantings at Grandma's house!  

But peonies seem to have made a comeback - not only at my town's festival, but in the stores on printed fabrics and decorative items.  There are a TON of YouTube tutorials on how to draw and paint peonies using every possible art medium available!

Every May there are big showy flowers all along one side of our house.  So why did I buy two pots of additional plants?  Well, you just can't have enough peonies!  There's always a spot where you can squeeze in one or two more.  Along with the Indiana Peony Festival, my town has established a "Peony Trail" - locations of notable plantings of peonies.  I don't think our house will ever be included, but if you drive down our street you'll see plenty of peony beds.  Here are some of my blooms.

I've decided to make the cemetery pilgrimage myself next year.  I'll need all the peonies I can get!

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*Although there were people from both the North and the South who embraced the sentiment of Decoration Day, there were others who weren't ready for reconciliation.  Friancis Miles Finch, a Northern judge, academic, and poet, inspired by the observance in the South, composed a poem that was so widely circulated in newspapers, magazines, and books that by the end of 1867, Decoration Day/Memorial Day was adopted by the North, where it was first celebrated in 1868.  In 1893 the poem was included in a school book published by Ginn and Company, Selections for Memorizing, alongside such standards as "Old Ironsides," "The Gettysburg Address," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and selections from Shakespeare, Dickens, Burns, and Longfellow, among others.  Here's the poem:

The Blue And The Gray
Francis Miles Finch (1827-1907)

By the flow of the inland river,     Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,     Asleep are the ranks of the dead:         Under the sod and the dew,             Waiting the judgment-day;         Under the one, the Blue,             Under the other, the Gray These in the robings of glory,     Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory,     In the dusk of eternity meet:         Under the sod and the dew,             Waiting the judgement-day         Under the laurel, the Blue,             Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours     The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers     Alike for the friend and the foe;         Under the sod and the dew,             Waiting the judgement-day;         Under the roses, the Blue,             Under the lilies, the Gray. So with an equal splendor,     The morning sun-rays fall, With a touch impartially tender,     On the blossoms blooming for all:         Under the sod and the dew,             Waiting the judgment-day;         Broidered with gold, the Blue,             Mellowed with gold, the Gray. So, when the summer calleth,     On forest and field of grain, With an equal murmur falleth     The cooling drip of the rain:         Under the sod and the dew,             Waiting the judgment -day,         Wet with the rain, the Blue             Wet with the rain, the Gray. Sadly, but not with upbraiding,     The generous deed was done, In the storm of the years that are fading     No braver battle was won:         Under the sod adn the dew,             Waiting the judgment-day;         Under the blossoms, the Blue,             Under the garlands, the Gray No more shall the war cry sever,     Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever     When they laurel the graves of our dead!         Under the sod and the dew,             Waiting the judgment-day,         Love and tears for the Blue,             Tears and love for the Gray.