VFW Post 2078 will conduct a parade in Washington.

Tazewell County Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in military service. It was begun after the Civil War when the country had so many men and women to mourn. Memorial Day is always held on the last Monday in May.

Locally there are celebrations in many towns and cities on Memorial Day weekend.

VFW Post 2078 will conduct a ceremony on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Soldiers’ Fields area at Fondulac Township Cemetery, 1985 E. Washington St. in East Peoria. To honor veterans who have died in the past year, a bell will be rung as each veteran’s name is read.

On Monday the day’s events will begin with a Memorial Day Breakfast from 7-10 a.m. at the American Legion, 24 E. Adams St. in Morton. The breakfast is free for veterans and includes sausage, scrambled eggs, wedge potatoes and biscuits and gravy. The Morton American Legion will also host a service at 4 p.m.

VFW Post 2078 will conduct a parade in Washington. The parade will begin at 200 W. Washington and end at 123 Meadows Ave. An Air Guard Fly-over is scheduled.

Just across the river, the Peoria Riverfront will be the site of a ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Retired U.S. Army Col. George Basso, a Vietnam War veteran, will give the commemoration speech. The event will be held in Marshall Plaza which is under the Gateway Building.

General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, proclaimed May 30, 1868 as the first Decoration Day, which later became Memorial Day. It was a day for people to honor the dead by decorating graves of those who had died in service to their country. The date was chosen because it wasn’t the date of any specific battle. By 1890 all northern states had recognized the date, but it wasn’t until after WWI that the southern states gave up having their own memorial day.

The National Holiday Act of 1971 ordained that national holidays would always fall on a Monday, therefore giving the country three-day weekends for celebrations.

The poppies that are sold by military organizations on Memorial Day weekend honor the dead and provide funds for many purposes. Originally the money was used to aid orphaned children and widowed women. The use of the red poppy began with the poem “In Flanders Fields.” After reading the poem, Moina Michael was inspired to write a companion poem, “We Shall Keep the Faith” with the lines, “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.” Moina was the originator of the sale of red poppies on Memorial Day.