by Tracy Staley, Kentucky Lantern
May 26, 2025

Editor’s note: I debated whether to republish this column from The Daily Yonder for the third Memorial Day in a row, but I love it so much I made it a tradition. – JL

This story was first published in The Daily Yonder on May 21, 2021 and is is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

While their friends are cannonballing into the city pool this weekend, my sons will spend the day in an Eastern Kentucky cemetery, placing flowers on the graves of relatives they never knew.

We are going back home on Decoration Day — a folk tradition practiced by generations of Appalachians and Southerners dedicated to visiting cemeteries where their families are buried to clean and decorate their graves, and often to attend a religious service and dinner on the cemetery grounds.

Like most who grew up in Eastern Kentucky, I’ve been practicing various rites of Decoration Day all my life. I loved the reunions, playing with my cousins, and filling plates of food and desserts. Although, I admit: I have often seen the other parts of Decoration Day as an unnecessary effort, one I had little interest in carrying on. What good was there in spending money on artificial flowers for people who would never know you made the gesture?

Yet this year, something changed. Perhaps it was turning 40, or the reckoning of the pandemic, or both, that made Decoration Day seem urgent and important not only to observe, but to pass down to my children.

As my perspective changed, my interest grew and sent me seeking answers, both historical and personal, about the cultural tradition, its origins, and why I felt a sudden urge to drag my three children to a cemetery on their first week of summer vacation.

What Is Decoration Day?

In Ohio, the streets of my small town are lined with tiny American flags. Living near a military base, with many active-duty and retired U.S. Air Force neighbors, I am keenly aware of the reverence paid to Memorial Day. Each year, I’d find myself asking my friends, “We always called it Decoration Day. We decorated everyone’s graves. Did you?” The answer was, with rare exception, no. Secretly, I worried if somehow I had incorrectly celebrated a patriotic holiday. Was this the same as not knowing I needed to illuminate a flag at night or take it down in the rain? Did we get this wrong? Had we expanded it selfishly to include everyone when we should have been only honoring those who died in battle?

For insight, I turned to the book “Decoration Day in the Mountains,” by folklorist Alan Jabbour, founding director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Jabbour’s thorough exploration of Decoration Day relieved me of my concerns and filled me with a new appreciation for history and rituals.

Decoration Day, Jabbour wrote, actually inspired Memorial Day, pre-dating any post-Civil War celebration in the South or North. Before the war, Appalachians and Southerners were already practicing what they called Decoration Day, also called “a decoration,”  which involved an annual “cleaning of community cemeteries, decorating them with flowers, and holding a religious service in the cemetery, often with “dinner on the ground.” Families spent weeks leading up to Decoration Day making buds and petals from bright crepe paper, cleaning the cemeteries.

His research also softened my other silent concern that Decoration Day was tied up in celebrating the Confederacy. Jabbour explains that two early and unrelated celebrations of the Confederate dead — one in Charleston, South Carolina, and the other in Petersburg, Virginia — both using the word “decoration” and both using flowers, led Jabbour to the conclude that organizers of the events each drew upon an existing tradition.

After reading Jabbour’s book, I called my grandmother, with whom I had tagged along to the cemetery, reunions and flower-buying expeditions. It was she who had carried the duty of Decoration Day to me, and I wanted to know why.

‘I was kindly like your youngins‘

One question from me about Decoration Day transports my grandmother back to her childhood — and ties me to the generations that came before me.

“Can you tell me what you remember about Decoration Day?”

From the old days?

“Yes.”

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

The post Bearing flowers and tradition, the next generation takes on the duty of Decoration Day appeared first on kentuckylantern.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This content reflects a thoughtful and personal exploration of a cultural and historical tradition, Decoration Day, with no overt political agenda or partisan language. It focuses on family heritage, community practices, and respect for history, which are themes that typically transcend conventional political divisions. The tone is reflective and inclusive, presenting cultural insights without promoting particular political ideologies, placing it squarely in a centrist context.