Memories Of Memorial Day

There was no question but that we had to go. It was Memorial Day and as family tradition prevailed, every year, Mother coerced her three sons into our wood-paneled Ford station wagon and drove toward Forest Lawn Cemetery in the older eastern section of Kansas City, Missouri. (Doesn’t every town have a cemetery named “Forest Lawn”?)Even my brother Tom, who had recently won the Kansas City Open Golf Tournament as its youngest champion ever—and who could escape almost any family event with the excuse that he “had to practice”—had to go.

The ritual commenced early Monday morning as Mom descended the staircase with ice coffee in one hand and a Phillip Morris (unfiltered) in the other. As boys we were never quite cognizant of what Memorial Day was about—and typically forgot, until Mom announced that we were going to the cemetery and “Go up to the attic and get the flag!”

Much whining ensued, followed by “DO AS I SAY.” Ridge, the Eagle Scout among us, trooped back down with the triangular-shaped bundle that was the family flag. Our flag was made of linen—Mother abhorred nylon—and we would tie it on a pole that stuck resolutely out beside our front door. We always counted the stars, arguing about our flag with 48 stars—why couldn’t we get one with 50?

“Because that flag was your grandfather’s flag,” was the answer. (Not for years later in life would we understand that this flag draped the casket of our grandfather who had been in the Great War, and whose life had been cut much too short.)

It was a large thick flag and looked beautiful on our house. As a young designer to be, I wanted it to reside there all the time.

Mom would shoo me out to clip the peonies and the first buds of the Mr. Lincoln and Peace rose (Kansas City’s blooms are always three weeks ahead of New York’s East End).

“Get LONG stems, be sure now” my mother instructed. One year I took her at her word and almost killed the plants by cutting them down to the ground. We definitely had long stems that year.

So with buckets of flowers sloshing around in the back seat of the Ford wagon, our overfed Lab squeezed in between (to prevent the buckets from tipping over), and three disgruntled boys, we embarked. Cleverly, our mother occupied her three sons by the Flag Count Challenge, a good fit for young competitive siblings. Whoever counted the most flags won. This was not easy. In pre-Vietnam days, Kansas City was red, white and blue patriotic with nearly every father a veteran of World War II and every grandfather a veteran of World War I. As we drove past the broad boulevards toward the bungalow sections, competition increased. Our huge station wagon would maneuver through the older neighborhoods whose congested streets were lined with elms and walnuts with branches that soared gracefully skyward, resembling leafy gothic arches.

Forest Lawn’s entrance was formidable, with enormous rough-cut Missouri limestone pillars supporting heavy elaborate iron gates. The gates opened onto a stately granite mausoleum and chapel designed by a protégé of Louis Sullivan. With its canted walls, a swooping roof that deeply overhung incised leaded glass windows, and Masonic emblems that no one understood, we figured it must be a Babylonian temple straight out of the Sunday afternoon sword and sandal movies.

A creepy hush fell over the three of us as we passed by its intimidating façade as the flag competition faded away. Mom would stop at the gatehouse to pick up the pronged cone-shaped rubber vases—in dark green—”more natural in the environment,” she quipped. She sniffed at the cemetery across the street from Forest Lawn that was sprinkled with tight pert arrangements of slightly faded flowers.

“Forest Lawn doesn’t allow plastic,” she said.

“But they last forever,” Ridge piped up.

“Nothing is forever,” Mom snapped back, and that was the end of THAT discussion.

Upon leaving the gatehouse, we always got lost. Forest Lawn, developed in the early 20th century, was situated in Missouri’s rolling hills, with streams and creeks running through it. Winding around huge maples, oaks and weeping willows, narrow, single-lane unmarked roads led through a planted metropolis of stone obelisks, weeping angels, majestic columns and formidable granite markers. The thick, early-summer canopy of leaves overhead shrouded this austere world.

Tom shouted, “The Ridges are near the temple and the Watsons are on top of the hill.”

Of course there were 10 temples and more hills than Rome, so the search could last a while.

“Well, look for the Haddocks too,” warned Mother. In true Scottish penuriousness, our great-grandparents, the Watsons, decided that the Haddocks’ substantial marker was sufficient to re-utilize and had the name “Watson” carved on the back of it.

Finally arriving, the station wagon would burst open with boys let loose on a rampage and a lumbering Lab finding the nearest tree.

Mom would methodically take out the pronged cups, spearing the dry ground carefully before each headstone. Then she would corral us to find the water spigot, a treasure hunt in itself, and once it was found we would fill the buckets and bring them to her, watching as she filled the cups, arranged the peonies and roses, and carefully picked up stray sticks and debris around the area.

It was at this time that she would start telling us stories about our relatives that lay beneath the stones. Mom was a gifted flower arranger and an even more gifted story teller, and as she stepped from stone to stone, she would weave funny narratives, blunt observations and sweet memories together for her three sons who stood by mesmerized. These carved stones and what lay beneath took on life for us: Granddad rollerskating to work during a bus strike; Great-Grandfather Haddock, who came to comfort his daughter after her young husband died, and never left; Uncle Marsh’s keen laugh; Aunt Becky, a stern headmistress disapproving of most everything; Mam Mam—the fashion icon; Uncle Ike, the famous Kansas City doctor who successfully treated polio; and Isaac Bell, who was shot by Confederates and survived with a plate in his head.

Mother would recall what the war was like, who served and who didn’t come back. All this she would tell us almost offhandedly, as she seemed to concentrate ever more intently on the flower arrangement at hand. We asked question after question, as she described relative after relative.

It was a rather large grouping, as our family was amongst the first settlers to cross through Kentucky and make their way up the Missouri River. Yet Mom knew a story about each and every one. She was not sentimental, but over the years with her snippets of stories she amassed for the three of us a rich and robust family history. Even when we’d get back in the car, somewhat weary from running all over the cemetery searching out the family of Watsons, Ridges, Haddocks, Valentines, O’Haras and Smarts, we’d still ask questions and Mom would answer every one.

Our mother honored Memorial Day quietly, by flying the flag, by arranging her flowers, and by imparting to her three sons the importance of remembering not only those who had passed on, but their stories, their accomplishments, their quirks and their sacrifices. What I wouldn’t give to experience Memorial Day with my mother again.