Olcott - The Bad Poppy-Seeds - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

It seems a week early to have Memorial Day, but it's this coming Monday instead of having it fixed at May 30th as it was until 1968 when Congress changed its observance to the last Monday in May. That change took effect at the federal level in 1971. Probably the American Legion will be selling Poppies this weekend through May 30th. Wikipedia explains:

In 1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields". Its opening lines refer to the fields of poppies that grew among the soldiers' graves in Flanders.^[80] Inspired by the poem, YWCA worker Moina Michael attended a YWCA Overseas War Secretaries' conference three years later wearing a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed over two dozen more to others present. The National American Legion adopted the poppy as its official symbol of remembrance in 1920.^[81]

Not just the United States, but around the world the Remembrance poppy is a symbol "to commemorate their military personnel who died in war. " Its choice goes way back in history as "Poppies have long been used as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death: Sleep because the opium extracted from them is a sedative, and death because of the common blood-red colour of the red poppy in particular.^[16]"  

The Twentieth Century especially chose poppies after that previously mentioned poem, ""In Flanders Fields", was written after the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.

It's certainly worth seeing those poppies, in Flanders Field or elsewhere, whether in Belgium or other cemeteries and battlefields or in the Youtube video of "Why Do Poppies Grow on Battlefields; The Science Behind Flanders Fields"

 

Here is a Bengali legend telling even a bit more about these flowers so closely involved with our Memorial Day and Remembrance Day in other countries. It comes from The Wonder Garden, an anthology that is perfect for garden lovers.

 

 

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This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20^th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

See the sidebar for other Public Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."