Brent, Decoration Day is different than a Memorial Day. You are right. We used to had Decoration at the cemetery here. My grandmother would take flowers and put on her son grave. They do do that now here,but I do keep my grandmother Tradition of putting flowers on my family graves. From: Brent Cantrell <cantrellb@netstarcomm.net> Date: 2007/05/25 Fri AM 10:07:17 CDT To: tncannon@rootsweb.com Subject: [TNCANNON] Decoration Day and Memorial Day I've been working with death ritual and grave yard customs for many years and it is my impression that "Decoration Day" and "Memorial Day" are two different customs, both in the minds of most folks and historically. Decoration Day most often took the form of a community day to gather at the graveyard. The actual "decoration" was -- and still is -- the cleaning of the graves and perhaps the placing of flowers, and it occurs during the week before the day itself. On Decoration Day people would dress up, gather and visit and remember the dead and catch up on lost relatives and friends. In some cases there would be dinner on the ground. The Decoration Days of the various grave yards and churches were on different days throughout the summer so that people could go attend several. For example, I have family at Unity (Decoration Day is Mother's Day), Centertown (Decoration Day is 3rd Sunday in May), Tucker (Decoration was 2nd Sunday in August) and many others going all through the summer. It was very much a social affair. Centertown Cemetery still is a big social day. It is my impression that this custom is mainly practiced in the South. It is also my experience that Decoration Day is not associated especially with remembering death in war, but is more about maintaning family ties, keeping up the grave yards and demonstrating respect for those that have gone before. Various written sources indicated that Memorial Day had it's origin in response to southern soldiers being honored on "Decoration Day," but whither that was a formal day set aside for honoring southern war dead or just a continuation of and an expansion of community Decoration Day events I do not know. I suspect the latter. A special decoration day may well have been developed in the South for all those brand new military cemeteries with no community organization to maintain them. That is just speculation on my part -- it is a fascinating topic though. Both Decoration Day and Memorial Day are important events, but they are really about two different things. Brent Cantrell ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TNCANNON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message