Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Remember the fallen

by Julie Carter

Memorial Day is all about honoring those that have gone on to their great rewards, traditionally in the service of our country.

However, before life became complicated and I understood all those things, it was simply "Decoration Day" to me and several generations and branches of my family tree would gather to clean and decorate all the kinfolks’ graves, military and otherwise.

Decoration Day was delightfully fun for my siblings and me. It was a much less organized family reunion of sorts. But, instead of meeting at some park or at a relative's house, we met at the cemetery.

My dad's side of the family was quite extensive. My grandmother was one of 12 children of a German homesteader and my grandfather was one of seven that were born and raised in a high mountain valley in Colorado.

In those days, there were large numbers of them still alive and living within a day's drive back “home” to where the roots of the family tree were first planted on homesteads, farms and ranches.

The cars and pickups of every age, size and color would pull up the hillside in the old pine tree-shaded cemetery where our clan had claimed resting ground since the 1870s.

Kids were the first to come pouring out of the vehicles and begin running up and down the pathways, seeking familiar faces and a space to blow off the hot crowded car ride.

Trunk lids would raise and as chattering voices carried on the late May breezes, the shovels and rakes along with buckets and buckets of fresh cut flowers would appear.

There were fresh-cut pine and spruce boughs, irises by the dozens and lilacs with a strong fragrance that wafted through the piney woods.

I don't know just how or who got it all done, but shortly, every grave would be clean, orderly and with a fresh bouquet. My grandmother would, as she did every year, explain to us who this or that person was and how they were related. She would laugh with me at the given names of the time - Hulda and George Washington Baker was just the funniest, I thought.

As we wandered through the many tiny tombstones that told a story, she told me about the flu epidemic that took so many children in 1880-82. Each marker bore the tale of the horrible loss of one, two and more children in the same family that died, sometimes within days of each other.

With history reviewed and duty done, we'd all pile back into the vehicles and travel off to have a huge picnic lunch. We’d find somewhere that allowed us to leave the propriety and reverence behind us while we got reacquainted with kin folk that we might not see again until the next May.

Annually, I recapture those moments from the recesses of my mind. Families have scattered far and wide and that tradition, like many others, got lost in the miles. And now gone too, is the enduring uncle who faithfully looked after and cared for our history at the cemetery.

My generation is now the “older” generation. We hold the historical value of the family in our fading memories and carry the burden of seeing it passed to those that come behind us.

This Memorial Day I am fortunate enough to be making the trip back to pay my respects to those laid to rest in those piney hills. I will be joined by a younger generation that I hope will find the honor and tradition in the day of remembering.

 Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com