Red Poppy & Memorial Day

Besides being a symbol of all that is fashionable and redhead, Red Poppy (the flower in this case, aka a common weed in Europe!) also happens to be synonymous with Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who died while in our nation's military service. Celebrated in almost every U.S. State on the last Monday in May, it's a day when loads of people proudly wear a red poppy in their buttonholes as a tribute to our veterans, but have you ever wondered why?

I have! Turns out that it has everything to do with the poem "In Flanders Fields," by John McCrae, 1915. Inspired by McCrae's war poem, American Teacher Miss Moina Belle Michael responded with her own poetry:
'We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.'

...and so thanks to Miss Moina Michael and eventually Madame Guerin from France, the custom of making and selling artificial red poppies on Memorial Day came to be (which is the custom today in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia)...


Photos courtesy of gooddeedaday.com, dailymail.co.uk