Origins of Memorial Day from American Experience PBS

Memorial Day Origins in the Civil War

The generation of Americans that survived the Civil War lived the rest of their lives haunted by its terrible toll. Contending with death on an unprecedented scale during the four-year conflict forced Americans to improvise new solutions, new institutions, and new ways of coping with the unimaginable loss.   There was no effective ambulance corps to transport wounded soldiers from the battlefields to aid locations. As late as August 1862, a Union division took the field at the Second Bull Run without a single ambulance. After numerous pleas to the government by public health advocates such as Henry Bowditch, an ambulance corps was finally established in 1864.   Soldiers did not wear dog tags or have any system of personal records. Hundreds of thousand of bodies remained unidentified, leaving families with no knowledge of how their loved one died, or where they might be buried. When officials did attempt identification, it was often unreliable, resulting in live soldiers being recorded as deceased and dead soldiers being marked as only slightly wounded. By World War I, soldiers were wearing official ID badges.   There was no official system for notifying next of kin. If a body was identified, a fellow soldier might take it upon himself to write to the family of the deceased explaining how their loved one died and offering words of condolence. In the spring of 1865, Clara Barton established the Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, D.C. Her organization eventually helped provide information for about 22,000 soldiers who would have otherwise remained unknown.   There was no Memorial Day. After the burial of many Union and Confederate soldiers, "decoration day" rituals began to spring up, which included placing fresh flowers on soldiers' graves.   One of the earliest known celebrations took place in Charleston, South Carolina on May 1, 1865, when the city's freed Black residents organized a proper burial for hundreds of Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prison, followed by a parade to honor their memory.   In the spring of 1868, General John Logan officially designated May 30th "for the purpose of strewing flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country," and Memorial Day as we know it today was established.

Vintage and Antique Toys

Richland Vintage & Toy Fest – Spring Edition

May 24th | 8 AM - 3 PM

Shoreline Vintage & Antiques

Richland Vintage & Toy Fest is back for our 4th Annual Spring Edition vintage, retro, toy, antique, pop culture, art and anything cool show! Free vending space & Free admission!!!

Sorry I couldn't supply more information on this particulary event, but I think you can google it. I got it from my Visit South Jersey e-mail newsletter. There were a great number of Veternas Day Events as well, many parades too.

I really don'thae many vintage toys, just one doll from the early 50's and I believe I have written about her before. My daughter however, has lots of toys in the attic and the shed incuding her American Girl Doll Collection. She also has Polly Pockets, if you remember those tiny gems. My one really old vintage childhood item is a Dale Evans and Roy Rogers lunch box, badly battered and rusty, but intact - no thermos of course!

he last time I went to a vintage toy fair, it was in Merhantville, NJ and I took a photograph of a box of mangled Barbi Dolls and printed and framed it. I entitled it "Oh Barbi, Is this how it all ends?" And in many ways, not just for Barbi dolls, time does often rob us of our hair, our glamour, our fancy fashions and we end in a box. But there is more than pathos in the vintage toy and doll world, there are the sturdy survivors! My daughters has, somehwere or another, a jeep and cast of characters from Jurrasic Park! We were both entranced by that series of films and the accompanying Museum exhibitions. That was a big cultural celebration! I think she may have a few dinosaurs somewhere too. All of her matchbox cars are gone as are her skateboard, her remote controlled cars and any other items I could pass on to my sister's son.

Looks like the weather will be good for the next couple of weekends so however you are spending yours, I hope you get outdoors. In my next post, I hope to do a review of Ted Lasso, the award winning tv series on apple tv. I took a free subscription to watch the series because it was recommended to me by so many people. It is in fact, GREAT! Happy Trails!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Alleyways and Stone House Lane

Early on this splendid day, after my gym workout and walk around Martin's Lake, I drove down to the Delaware River through Gloucester City. On the way, I decided to drive around the Mill Blocks, oldest buildings in G.C. built in 1845 to house the workers from the two large brick mills that once stood just to the North of them, just before what was once the New York Ship Yard. Suddenly I realized the alleyways and remembered the ones we had between the rows of brick workers houses where I grew up in South Philadelphia, down below Oregon Avenue.

I hadn't given much thought to alleyways over the years, and how they disappeared in residential housing developmentw, although they were once a staple of village life both here and in England. The alleyways separated the the back yards of houses and made a track way for back yard entrances, probably very useful for cottage gardening and back door deliveries.

I remember the hucksters coming through my Grandmother Lyons' back alley in Spring and summer until autumn, delivering ice for the ice boxes we had in my earliest childhood before refrigerators were common, and selling produce. The hucksters had wooden wagons drawn by horses and as a small child in the city, I was amazed and entranced by the horses. Also, I have such a crystal clear picture of the tin weighing bucket and the gauge and how the black needle moved when the produce went into the bucket to be weighed and priced. I can also remember the large tongs the ice man used to haul out the big block of ice and bring it in our kitchen on Warnock Street for our ice box. My Grandmother's Alley was much better than ours. So many people where we lived on Warnock Street had cemented their back yards and had wrought iron fences, but Grandmom's back yards were all lants and flowers and trees and wooden fences. Also, the homemakers would gather around the alleyways to meet at the huckster for their produce and it was a chance to socialize.

My Grandmother in Ocean City, New Jersey had an alleyway behind her house at 623 Asbury Avenue too, also green with plants in the sandy yards and wooden fences. I never saw a huckster there, though, and perhaps the day of the huckster had already ended.

Our hucksters in South Philadelphia came up from Stone HOUse Lane, and ancient village reclaimed from the Delaware River estuary swamplands by enterprising early Dutch and German Settlers who dug canals and used the fertie soil to rais up agricultural beds where they grew the vegetables and the things they needed to feed the hogs and horses they kept there. Later the City took the land and the shipyard is there now, and the airport and industrial usage and Stone House Lane is almost lost to memory.

Although there were no interesting hucksters in my Gradmother Wright's backyard alleyways, I so well remember her meeting with her neighbor Mrs. Garwood, to chat over the fence.

Some things promote socializing and the alleyways certainly did that, so do gardents. I used to meet my neighbor, Mrs King, a German war bride, who kept a vegetable garden on her side of our fence in the backyard and when she was tending her garden and my small daughter was playing in her playhouse we would chat over the fence.

I hope you get out and enjoy this gorgeous, even exhilerating weather while it lasts. Go for a walk and maybe ghrow in a drive and visit someplace and find some wonders! Happy Trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Lens: Finding Stonehouse Lane, South Philly's lost ...

WHYY

https://whyy.org › articles › lens-finding-stonehouse-la...

Stonehouse Lane, Philadelphia, Pa from whyy.org

Sep 2, 2016

Social relationships and Health

CNN's 5 Good Things internet newsletter always offers good advice and today one of the five good things was about the much talked and written about effect of social connections on our emotiona AND physical health!

Having just had my sister over this afternoon, I was reflecting on how happy I am when we spend time together even though most of the time, we aren't hanging out, but she is helping me do errands and chores. My sister is 20 yers younger than I am and she is a mighty physical force. Every two weeks or so, she comes over for 2 to 4 hours to do shopping and heavier cleaning for me. I pay her $30 an hour this year. I can do the easy stuff like dishes and surfaces, tidying and feeding the pets and scooping the litter, but as my knees and back have worsened some tasks are very difficult for me -mopping, vacuuming, and the steps to the basement for laundry. She helps with these.

Movement, nature, art, service and belonging

The above are the CNN named "pillars" of socializing. Doing something together, getting outside into nature, doing things that put you in the zone, helping others and feeling as though you belong to some group. Our local Senior Center offers classes in fitness and chair yoga. Fortunately for me there are several parks of all sizes near where I live and I am walking around Martin's Lake evey morning. It is 1/2 mile. I take my dog and today my sister walked there with us.

For Art, I am fotunate enough to have been an Art teacher and I have done art all my life. Just about 20 minutes from my home is a charming gallery and coffee cafe called The Station and Eiland Arts Center. I am invited half a dozen times a year to enter work in their group shows and I just completed a painting and a collage for the upcoming show on the theme of TRAVEL.

Possibly the only service I perform preently is at my Quaker Meeting in Woodbury where I have been doing First Day School for our youngest member for a year. I have done other service projects there as well. I founded (with help) a gallery in the reception area of a building on our grounds which was not longer in use. We have had 3 shows so far. Also, I provided arm rails for our bathrooms, pads for some of our benches, and other things over the years. The Friends Meeting is also a place where I experience Belonging, the fifth pillar.

Previously I joyfully volunteered at a variety of local historical locations: Red Bank Battlefield, Gloucester County Historical Society, Alice Paul Institute, and Bayshore Discovery Project. My deteriorating joints sadly put an end to all that. I had a lot of fun volunteering and I met a lot of wonderful people. I strongly recommend it!

I tell you these things not because I am bragging but to give you an idea of specific ways you can implement the pillars in your life. Another thing, I have an adopted shelter dog and when I walk her, I meet many people and have made a couple of new friends in this way. Good for my dog, good for me! I guess that counts as 'service' and shelters are also great places that welcome volunteers!

Get cnnnected! Don't be shy about contacting an old friend and inviting that friend for a lunch. Send a card and your contact information to an old friend you haven't seen in a long time. A couple of years ago, a great niece moved into my area and I invited her to lunch and we have made it a monthly plan! I have enjoyed spending time with a young person and it is something we both look forward to.

Some other socializing I do that you could consider is, when I retired, some of my teaching colleagues and I set up a seasonal get-together lunch to catch up with one another's lives.

Lunch is my favorite way to get together, it is light and easy to drive, not too expensive and we have dozens of good nearby places to eat. Two of my neighbors and I go out to eat monthly now at Maritsa's. One of my old hiking buddies and I meet every 2 to 3 weeks at the Colonial Diner where they have a big VEGAN menu because she is a vegan. I like to get out to lunch about once a week.

I hope this gives you some ideas on ways you can boost your social interactions. I love solitude more than most people but I agree that it is importnt to nurture and enjoy the social ties with friends and family in whatever ways you can, for your good, and you may be surprised how much it might mean to others! Oh yes, I text with some friends on a daily basis too!

I just leanred there is an art workshop not too far from here and on a free Friday I may try that out as well! I learned about it from a visitor to the Friendship Art Gallery, the one I wrote about earlier in this post that was founded by me with the help of Friends.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Health, Hope and Happiness

Today, May 6 - an update on one month of Restoration of my seriously failing health and fitness. After the winter this year 2024 - 2025, when I had stopped walking the dog due to ice and snow and a bad back and painful knees, I had fallen into serious decline (for me). For example, last summer, 2024 I could walk 4000 to 5000 steps a day which included a mile walk with my dog Uma each morning. By March 2025, I could hardly make it to the back of the ShopRite and couldn't walk a block, my back pinched so badly and my knees screamed in hot pain. I could hardly get up off a chair and had bought rails for my sofa! I had sent away for a catalog of adaptive devices for disabled people because I WAS disabled! It never arrived.

If that evidence alone wasn't enough, I visited my general practitioner in early April for my semi annual and my lab report was awful. I had gained 6 pounds and my blood counts had all gone into the danger zone. I was perched on the edge of diabetes.

Emotionally, I was bereft, no energy, lethargic, but there was still a glimmer of my old metal left. I pulled myself together and decided that each day when my neighbor, John, walked the dog for me, as soon as they came back, I would put the dog in the house and go to the Planet Fitness gym not 5 minutes from my house and do a short work-out, very easy, very slow, just to get warmed up and unstiffened.

My neighbor had taken over walking the dog in the winter when the sidewalks were perilous with ice and snow because he walks twice a day for his health. He walked faster and further than I could so I was glad for my dog's sake as well as for mine.

The first day in the gym, I could barely turn the wheel of the stationary bike. I told myself to try to just do 5 minutes. By the third minute my stiffest, worst knee, the left one, had loosened up a little and I began to believe I could do 5 minutes, and I did. Next, I went into the 30 minute workout room and did 3 machines that strengthen arms and back, biceps and triceps curl, 20 each, and seated rower, 20. I did 25 on the leg curl machine which I googled at home and found out is good for knees and lower back! I decided I would add a little to each machine and one minute to the bike each week. The second week, I did 25 repititions on each machine and 6 minutes on the bike, then 30 reps and 7 minutes and I added two abs machines and did 30 on them. This week I got to 9 minutes on the bike (my goal is 15 minutes and I will stop there and just do 15 each time so I don't wear out my knees but just keep them flexible and strengthened. I am up to 60 on the abs cmbined and 60 on the leg curl.

Sadly, my walking hadn't improved very much, my back still hurt and when I tried to walk my dog in different parks for pleasure and change, she was too excited and pulled so badly she hurt my back.

THEN, I got the idea of trying Martin's Lake in Gloucester City. I drove by it many times and found it perfect. It is paved; it is small and peaceful and beautiful. My neighbor and I measured it on my car odometer and it is 1/2 a mile around! So, today, I put on my dog's best training collar and had a stiff talk with her about walking nicely and not pulling.

We drove over to the Lake and parked near the chain link fence on one corner of the park. The chain link fence helped to calm my dog's excitement when she first got out of the car and she is smart enough to have understood at least something of the lecture I gave her, my tone if not my words, plus the training collar helps a lot. She walked perfectly and we made it around the park with NO PAIN, no pain at all in my knees or my back. A miracle. I could hardly believe it!

I began in early April and as of today it has been a month since. Now I can walk the 1/2 mile Martin's Lake and I am going to walk it every day, even on gym days and try by the end of the month to walk it twice and make it a mile! It was 1500 steps. There is a park across the street, Johnson's Boulevard jogging track that I would like to measure in steps and perhaps by autumn, I will be able to walk that park! Maybe by next Spring I can walk both parks!

In place of my despair and lethargy, I have happiness, hope, and much better health! My spirits are revived as well as my vitality. I tell you all this because I am hoping it might give you inspiration to do something to improve your health, if you need to, not to mention your emotional state! By the way, additional inspiration came for me by reading health newsletters in my daily e-mail. I get about 3 of them, one is called 5 Good Things and I forget the names of the others but they all promote exercise as well as social connections at top of the list for health, happiness and longevity. I am not so focused on longevity but I want to the have the best years, however many I may have left. To paraphrase one of my favorite poets, Dylan Thomas, I will "not go gently in that dark night, I will rage rage against the dying of the light!" Happy trails (may they be outdoors!) Jo ann wrightj45@yahoo.com (e-mail me if you wish to comment, the comment section is entirely Love Canal level polluted by scammers)

Are You Flourishing from 5 Good Things

In my e-mail just now, I read the 5 Good Things newsletter and two items struck me: Neighborhoods, and Are You Flourishing. The first was a response to a criticism that no one has friendly neighborhoods anymore. The writer begged to differ and mentioned several kinds of friendly interactions she experienced lately. I too, have a friendly neighborhood and I wanted to add my experiences. One of my neighbors walks my dog for me every morning. He walks further and faster than I can which is better for my dog who is a big husky/lab mix and needs a good walk. Another neighbor takes my recycle and trash cans to the curb for me on recycle and trash days. My corner auto repair is a blessing, the mechanic is kind, talented, and reasonable and he has saved me many times with car emergencies! i do try to reciprocate in my own small ways with gifts of small paintings, or baskets of fruit, or for my mechanic in the summer, a gallon of lemonade and some cookies. Good friends are a blessing. I also have a neighbor with whom I walk from time to time. I met her when I was walking my dog and her husband was painting their fence. Dogs are a great way to make friends!

From 5 Good Things: "'Are you Flourishing? It’s not the same as being happy. “Flourishing” more broadly describes what it means to live a good, full life, bolstered by good health, financial security and strong relationships, among other criteria, says the Global Flourishing Study, which polled residents of more than 20 countries to see whether they were really thriving. Indonesia has the highest rate of flourishing, researchers found. (The US ranked 15th."

After a fortunate experience yesterday, I would say I am definitely flourishing! With the approval and help of my Friends from Woodbury Friends Meeting, the reception area of one of our buildings which is now sadly abandoned, has been turned into a gallery. I had a solo retrospective there in December and a Friend, Diana Brose is having one there now. A small group of artists dropped by yesterday to see the building and Diana's show. The two from South Jersey Artists' Collaborative are interested in doing something with the now empty Underwood Building. An Art Show and good works in the future is plenty to make my life feel as though it is flourishing. My own solo-retrospective was so inspiriing to me that I wrote a book from it. Each painting represented a series of other paintings from a part of my life and seeing the works all up on the wall brought back so many memories.

I am having the challenges of my age, knees, back, eyesight, difficulty getting around, but, I am also recently engaged in going to the local gym and working out and that too is inspiring and helps me feel as though I am flourishing. Hope you are flourishing too, and if not at present, I hope you get some inspiration to do something that makes you feel as though you are flourishing! Happy Trails, Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happiness

The New York Times had a headline teaser that said "A Century of Happiness Research has yielded one big clue." They didn't tell you the answer unless you subcribed, but I googled and found the answer from several resources with the same title. The answer to happiness,research says the key to happiness is SOCIAL CONNECTIONS.

There are so many ways to make social connections. For example, after I had to give up a lot of former activities due to problems with my back and knees, such as The Outdoor Club, and my volunteer tour guiding, (both of these are great ways to make friends) I still had my lunch friends. From my career as a teacher and from these activities I had made one or two staunch friends who still meet even though I can't hike or kayak any more. We have lunch and catch up on what's going on in one another's lives! Two I am meeting this Monday have both just returned from traveling and will share their photos and adventures with me. We share many other things as well, family stories, best books, good movies, health issues and solutions, to name just a few.

Walking the dog also gives you the opportunity to make new friends. I met a neighbor who was painting his fence where I walked my dog and his wife and I have become good friends and often walk together. We have added another neighbor to our little friendship group and we three lunch each month together now.

Seven years ago, I returned to a faith community, the Society of Friends. I had been a member many years ago in Philadelphia, but lost touch after I moved to New Jersey. I rejoined at Woodbury Friends Meeting and I truly enjoy both our discussion group at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, and the Meeting for Silent Worship that follows from 11:00 to 12:00. I have made two new fast friends from this group, one of whom is an artist as am I.

Our Secniors Community Center in Mt. Ephraim has bloomed since we elected our new mayor, Susan Carney. She added classes in chair yoga, fitness, games and other activities and going to any of these is an excellent way to get fit and make new friends.

So, don't sit alone in your house watching a news channel all day, get out and about! Make friends!

Recently some Philadelphia family members of mine moved to New Jersey and now that we are geographically closer, I treat my young great-niece to lunch once a month. We have gotten to know one another much better and really enjoy that time together, plus it has brought a young person into my senior citizen world. Speaking of family, I am blessed to have a sister nearby and we get together every week or two. She means the world to me.

Attending some community events and historical site events is also a great way to meet people!

Happy trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com (e-mail for discussion as the comments section of this blog spot is polluted by spam, thank you)