This a personal site created for friends and family. We are still in the building phase but hope you enjoy what we have so far. You can reach us at renee@talosatt.com.
On this Memorial Day please take a minute to remember all os those fallen heros. We often focus on the holiday (day off, food and drinks, parties) and not the reason behind it. Please remember Lt. Harry Parker Davis, Jr., Donna and Renée's father. He gave his life fighting a stupid war (Korean) and missed knowing his wonderful grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Memorial Day From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the American holiday.
Observances Remembrance of American war dead Memorial Day is a federal holiday observed annually in the United States on the last Monday of May.[1] Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. (Southern ladies organizations and southern schoolchildren had decorated Confederate graves in Richmond and other cities during the Civil War, but each region had its own date. Most dates were in May.) By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.[2] As a marker it typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end.
Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service. Many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries.[3]
By the early 20th century, Memorial Day was an occasion for more general expressions of memory, as people visited the graves of their deceased relatives in church cemeteries, whether they had served in the military or not. It also became a long weekend increasingly devoted to shopping, family gatherings, fireworks, trips to the beach, and national media events such as the Indianapolis 500 auto race, held since 1911 on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.[4]
Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountains. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with kinfolk and others. There often is a religious service and a "dinner on the ground," the traditional term for a potluck meal in which people used to spread the dishes out on sheets or tablecloths on the grass. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea. See Jabbour and Jabbour (listed below
EARLY HISTORY (see? they take all of our ideas)
Memorial day has its origins in a Decoration Day, which began during the civil war among Freedmen (freed slaves) and other Black American families, as a celebration of both black and white Union soldiers who fought for liberation and justice [5]. Together with teachers and missionaries, Blacks in Charleston organized a May Day ceremony in 1865, which was covered by the New York Tribune and other national papers. The freedmen had cleaned up and landscaped the burial ground, building an enclosure and an arch labeled, "Martyrs of the Race Course." Nearly ten thousand people, mostly freedmen, gathered on May 1 to commemorate the dead. Involved were 3,000 schoolchildren newly enrolled in freedmen's schools, mutual aid societies, Union troops, and black ministers and white northern missionaries. Most brought flowers to lay on the burial field. Today the site is used as Hampton Park.[6]. Years later, the celebration would come to be called the "First Decoration Day" in the North.
The historian David W. Blight described the day:"This was the first Memorial Day. African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina. What you have there is black Americans recently freed from slavery announcing to the world with their flowers, their feet, and their songs what the War had been about. What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution
Like birds, let us, leave behind what we dont need to carry, GRUDGES SADNESS PAIN FEAR and REGRETS. Life is beautiful, Enjoy it. HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012
Grandaughter Zora at San Diego Zoo over the holidays.
