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Vendaval -> "N.Y. village birthplace of Memorial Day" (5/27/2007 3:43:51 PM)
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"N.Y. village birthplace of Memorial Day"
By BEN DOBBIN, Associated Press Writer
Sun May 27, 2:28 PM ET
" WATERLOO, N.Y. - Like almost everyone in this village, pharmacist Henry Welles joined the jubilant crowds at welcome-home parades for Civil War soldiers in 1865. It got him thinking that a solemn day to memorialize those who didn't make it back alive also was needed.
His idea took root on May 5, 1866. The woolen mills along the canal shut down for the day. Banks and grocery stores did too. And scores of villagers marched in mourning, some like Welles visiting all three cemeteries to decorate each veteran's grave with a floral cross.
More than two dozen communities around the United States, from Boalsburg, Pa., to Macon, Ga., and Carbondale, Ill., to Richmond, Va., claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. Yet the official distinction, signed into law by President Johnson in 1966, is held by Waterloo.
Civic boosters here are redoubling their efforts to capitalize on the honor — from hanging "Birthplace of Memorial Day" banners across Main Street to digging more deeply into the history of the national holiday's local origins in this village of 5,100 in central New York's Finger Lakes wine region.
"It doesn't take away from other places where homage was paid by various individuals," said Tanya Warren, curator of Waterloo's newly expanded National Memorial Day Museum. "The difference is Waterloo's commemoration was consistently observed and community-wide. Everything shut down. That did not happen elsewhere."
In 1866, people were overcome by more than just emotion. It turned out to be stiflingly hot, and Welles was felled by heat stroke severe enough to be blamed for his death 14 months later at age 47.
"Poor Henry! He sacrificed his life for Memorial Day," lamented Warren.
The town switched the holiday to May 30 in 1868 when Gen. John Logan, the new commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued a proclamation to Union veterans designating it a day of commemoration for Civil War dead.
First known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day expanded to an observance honoring all U.S. war dead after World War I and in 1971 was made an official national holiday to be held on the last Monday in May.
Though Waterloo had a full slate of events this weekend, its official ceremony will be held on Wednesday. Graves are adorned with flags and flowers and, in the evening, residents of all ages join a somber parade.
"Our forefathers have always been very humanistic and patriotic, and we're carrying on where they left off," said Caren Cleaveland, 49, the force behind an elaborate cenotaph memorial being erected along the Cayuga-Seneca Canal to honor Civil War soldiers from both North and South.
"We need an American Civil War Memorial to recognize that we have all become one," she said.
The remodeled museum, which opened in 1966, recently had "Waterloo" removed from its name in place of "National." Locally bequeathed artifacts — Civil War letters, muskets, battlefield maps and the like — now fill four rooms instead of one. The front parlor windows and a soldier's portrait over the fireplace are draped in black to mirror the Victorian era's culture of mourning. "
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070527/ap_on_re_us/memorial_day_birthplace
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