On Sunday, the day after my nephew’s wedding and before Memorial Day, I found myself with Mom in the hometown cemetery where Dad, both sets of grandparents, and my Grandma and Grandpa “Great” are buried. We stopped briefly at each of those headstones as well as some belonging to cousins, aunts and uncles, commenting on the way each life had been commemorated in granite or marble, noticing special markers that honor American military veterans, markers provided free of charge by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
I was, strangely, a bit excited to find the metal flag holder at my dad’s stone leaning backwards towards the row of pine trees, offering me a way to do a small thing in his memory by straightening it.
It was my husband who pushed back the tree branches to reveal the bronze marker securely fastened to the back of Dad’s headstone. I was only eighteen when he died. The trees were small then.
I haven’t visited the cemetery often, but find myself more drawn to it since beginning the search for my ancestors, a search that has revealed the dates of Dad’s army enlistment and release (March 27, 1953- March 17, 1955). I’m told that he spent that time in Texas as the Korean war ended in July 1953.
Robert Eugene Pfeiffer
On Monday, May 28, 2018’s Memorial Day, while having lunch at Pizza Hut with Dave and son Kyle, I mentioned my intent to write a patriotic post, prompting good conversation about the history and perception of war in America. I appreciated the insights of both men; we enjoyed their day off from work; and I put off the writing. That evening, I scrolled through my Facebook news feed, noticing each friend’s posted photo of a tombstone or loved one gone, feeling both a shared sadness and a twinge of guilt, wondering whether it would be appropriate for me to write about Memorial Day at all.
While we have expanded the holiday’s scope to remembrance of all who have gone before us, Memorial Day is officially a day for honoring Americans who died while serving in the United States Military. The additional honoring of living veterans is appropriate on Memorial Day as on every day of the year. The twinge of guilt comes when I compare my own infrequent expressions of gratitude and prayers for those now serving to the grief mingled with pride that many Americans endure, the daily challenges of military spouses and children, and the physical and mental anguish that drives our valiant veterans to suicide.
Providence has prevented me from sending a husband or son off to war. I don’t recall hearing stories about any relative who died in a war. There is, however, the gut-wrenching written account of my great uncle’s survival as a WWII prisoner of war in Italy and Germany during 1944 and 1945, a story recently told through my hometown newspaper well after his death in 1991. And there is the poignant telling of how desperately his brother, my grandfather, wanted to go “over there,” but was denied due to a heart condition. Both of them valiant.
By God’s grace and the brave actions of many Americans, I live in a land of freedom, thankful to be free to express myself through this blog, to live and work where we choose, to participate in Christian worship, to vote in democratic elections and so much more.
By God’s grace, my ancestors arrived in America after leaving France, Germany, Switzerland, and Ireland, at least one of them early enough to fight in America’s Revolutionary War, another in the War of 1812, and several in the Civil War. So far, I’ve located WWI and WWII registrations and a couple of military pension records.
On Tuesday, I sat down to write my patriotic post and in a moment of preparation (or procrastination), I decided to try to locate names of my grandfathers-long-gone who were involved in the Civil War. That moment turned into a long and fruitful time spent on the National Park Service website, followed by some successful tracing of Dad’s maternal grandmother’s predecessors back to Ireland. I hope to find more about the grandmother who is listed as born on the ship from France. (Those who have the Genealogy bug know how one thing leads to another.) Dinner time came before I wrote one word.
Today, I had enough self-discipline to not allow myself to delve into the past before this patriotic post was published. By tomorrow, I might have felt it was no longer relevant, a false sentiment to be sure, but one that might have led to replacing the topic.
I smiled today when I looked up the history of Memorial Day and was reminded of its predecessor, Decoration Day. According to history.com, “On the first Decoration Day in 1868, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.”
Some day soon, I hope to return to my hometown cemetery, check on that flag holder beside my dad’s grave, and find the spot where, according to my research, my great-great-great Grandma and Grandpa Keller were laid to rest. Right now, it’s time to make dinner.