By Christopher Gooding
The Record
SPRINGHILL – The second Sunday of every September is a bit of a mystery here in Springhill.
Family members and friends tend to the final resting places of their loved ones in an annual act known as Decoration Day but its origins seem to have become lost. A general consensus here in Springhill is it began before WWII and that a parade was held but when and why has faded from memory.
“I’ve heard a number of stories about it over the years; that it was for remembering the military and soldiers and that citizens would go and put flags at the graves and later it became flowers,” community historian Mary Willa Littler said.
It was sometime before 1939 Decoration Day began, Littler says, but her research comes to an end there.
Win Brown, a trustee with the Hillside Cemetery Co. Springhill, says he recalls as a boy of six or seven-years old remembers his father becoming a trustee of the same cemetery and driving in the family car to tend to lots during the days of push mowers. On of those car rides a more formal form of the already ongoing Decoration Day was formed.
“This was at a time when the only money they had was from the sale of lot ownership. Before this some of those family sized lots were sold for as little as 2$ - they didn’t have a lot of money. One of the things they decided to do, and I don’t know what year this happened… they approached a number of different organizations: churches, legions, halls, the marching band and schools. They went to all these people and organized an annual decoration day.”
Decoration Day, Brown said, had been going on for a number years before that time, however, but he recalled being a Boy Scott in 1945 carrying a flag in the parade as the event become a large, community event.
“My arms would be ready to fall off by the time we finally got there.”
Parades would begin on Elgin Street and march to the cemetery and on arrival people would use shears to clean up the lots, trim wild roses and place baskets of homegrown flowers.
Louann Smith, a private business owner who creates floral arrangements year-round but sees an increase in sales during Decoration Day. She, too, has heard many legends of its beginnings but nothing to pin down its origins. Nonetheless, its memory gives her an opportunity to work her craft from home.
“I don’t know when Decoration Day started but I know it’s the second Sunday of September, which would be the 12th this year,” Smith said. “I started selling flowers as a business in 2001 but I had been doing flower arrangements for 25 years.
In anticipation of Decoration Day, Smith will be setting up at the Farmers Market at the Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre as well as taking orders. In time, she says, maybe she will find the secret to Decoration Day’s beginnings.
THIS JUST IN - Sources close to The Record say they know the origins of Decoration Day and a follow up article is in progress. Stay tuned.
