Memorial Day, 1919
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, May 27th 2019
“This
is not a day of the glorification of war, but a solemn recognition of the
supreme sacrifice and terrible cost of war.”
The
Rev. Myron Boozer, pastor of Medford Presbyterian Church, had begun his
Memorial Day address on a day the Mail Tribune called “the most notable
Memorial Day observance and the most deeply sentimental in its significance in
the history of Medford.”
Friday,
May 30, 1919, marked the first Memorial Day observance since the Nov. 11
Armistice of the previous year. Although the Armistice had ended fighting
during WWI, it would still be almost another month before the Treaty of
Versailles would formally end the “war to end war.”
The
day began in Library Park (today’s Alba Park) with school children, Red Cross
women dressed in white uniforms, and hundreds of residents gathering in front
of the Carnegie Library. They circled around a floral column dedicated to the
40 local men who had died in the name of freedom and democracy.
Nearly
20 feet high, the patriotic memorial was fashioned from thousands of local
flowers by the women of the Red Cross. Red roses were woven into its base,
white roses in its middle, and clusters of blue “snakeheads” (Fritillaria) that
had been hand-gathered from Jackson County forests, were molded into a tall
shaft at its top. Attached on all sides were the names of the area’s fallen
soldiers.
A
bugle sounded and Junior Red Cross members, accompanied by the high school
band, sang “Truth Is Marching On,” while tossing bouquets of red roses at the
memorial’s base.
Major
Robert Clancy, a Medford physician, gave a patriotic address from the library
step, and then led the group in the singing of “America.”
The
gathering formed a column that included veterans of previous wars and was led
by surviving veterans of the Civil War. They marched down Main Street to the
bridge across Bear Creek, following the martial tunes played by the high school
band.
On
the bridge, to honor fallen Marines and Navy fighters, the Junior Red Cross and
the women of the Red Cross dropped roses down to the waters of the creek, all
the while singing, “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.”
After
the National Guard’s rifle squad fired another salute, the crowd entered the
nearby Page Theater for a presentation dedicated to those who had died in the
Civil War. (The Page Theater was destroyed in a 1923 fire. A corner of the
five-story building stood where a parking lot on the south side of Main Street
stands today.)
The
Rev. Boozer stood on a stage patriotically decorated with flags, bunting and
flowers. His address was called the most important of the day.
“We
are face to face with problems that war can never solve,” he said. “The blood
of our heroic dead cries aloud from every field of battle, and from every grave
on home or foreign soil; for the recruiting of a vast army of great hearts
dedicated to the unfinished tasks they have bequeathed to us.”
Memorial
Day 1919 ended with flowers lovingly placed on the graves of soldiers and
sailors.
Writer Bill Miller is the author of “Forgotten Voices of
WWI,” a different look at the war to end war. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com
or WilliamMMiller.com.
https://mailtribune.com/lifestyle/memorial-day-1919
