Thoughts on Memorial Day

Memorial Day has been a lot of different things in my life. Many see it as the official beginning of summer. In Jr. High, we were taught that Memorial Day signaled that it was now socially accepted to begin wearing our white shoes and carrying our white purses, rather than the black or brown of the rest of the year! Raised with the fact that Memorial Day originated as a day to honor those who have died in service to their country, it was not a day that I was accustomed to going to family members graves to visit or place flowers. Few are aware that the day was originally called "Decoration Day," as Civil War survivors began to honor those lost in the war by decorating the graves of the fallen. Over the years, the day and manner of honoring those who had lost their lives has changed (read the history of Memorial Day here: 

  https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/memorial-day-history ) 

but it officially became the Federal Holiday that we know today on the fourth Monday in May to give federal employees a three day weekend in 1971.

As I've said, I didn't grow up going to visit family graves on Decoration Day, because none of my family members had served in the military. I was recently discussing this with my cousin, Norm, who was about to enlist in the Air Force when he received his acceptance letter to DeVry Technical Institute. He was able to complete his education rather than being absorbed into the heated conflict in Viet Nam. My brother, Al won big in the draft lottery when they drew his birthday, December 4 as #1 in 1968. He certainly would have been on his way to Viet Nam had his first son, Dan, not been born in June, 1967. Al's classification changed from 1a to 1y.

As Norm and I continued to think about the fact that none of our family had had to fight in any wars, we came to realize that his father, my Uncle Henry, was too young too fight when World War I broke out, and too old to be drafted for World War II. My dad, however, was of a prime age to be drafted into World War II. At 19 years of age when Pearl Harbor was attacked 7 December 1941, he was supposed to enter the service. The day of my parents' wedding, after the ceremony,  Dad had to go with Grandpa Zielke to the draft board office to verify that Dad was needed to help on the family farm as the last son at home. As farmers were needed, he received a deferral and Dad was able to return to  his wedding reception!

I share this information, not to brag that the men in our family managed to "dodge the draft" at every turn, but rather in gratitude; that we have been spared the sorrow of losing any of the young men in our family to the evils of war. My family history is fairly young to America with great grandparents born in Germany, Poland & Prussia, but in doing my family history, I have come to realize that they came to America to flee the wars and oppression of that time. As we've come to realize in recent years, had they not left their homeland when they did, they would have been trapped on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. With that knowledge, having seen the evidence of those times that still exist, I can't take the freedom we have in America for granted.

I'm blessed. My children and grandchildren are blessed. My parents and grandparents were blessed to not have to been active in any of the wars, then or now. We've had the Memorial Day Picnics. From 1967-1974, every Memorial Day weekend was spent on Lake Siskiwit in Cornucopia, Wisconsin as my dad and Uncle Henry opened our family cabins. Those weekends were spent preparing for fun on the lake, campfires and a summer of fun! We had neighbors on Lake Siskiwit: Walt and Emma Westphall. I knew that they had lost their only son on a submarine in World War II, but it didn't really hit me until the day we went to visit them in their home in Aurora and I was faced with a picture of a handsome, young man in uniform, a pretty young woman and an adorable, smiling baby girl. At that moment, in spite of my youth, it hit me that their dead son was a REAL person and his daughter had never seen her daddy again after he left from that visit, while I took for granted all that my father was and did for me and our family. 

While my Memorial Day holidays have always been celebratory in nature, I have always been mindful of those who were lost in the wars and thankful that none of my family had been a part of any of it. In recent years, two young men who married into our family have served in the Army. My son-in-law, Joshua Gailey, has recently been discharged from service while my niece's husband, Andrew Powell, is still in service. Once again, however, we have been blessed in that neither Josh nor Andrew has had to face active combat, but they were trained and had the Army given the order, both would have gone to do their duty.

I'm grateful for an America that provided freedom for my ancestors, that has enabled generations of Zielke/Staffeldts and Hill/Haags to live and prosper and pray, for all its faults, that the America that I know and love continues to exist through the lives of my children, grandchildren and generations to come.