We have no flagpole holder, no siding on our house to hold one, and the front of our house is obscured by large trucks. Still, I walked to the mailbox a minute ago to stick a small flag in its arm.  It’s Decoration Day, Memorial Day’s first name, what it was called when it was established in 1868 for the purpose of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers.

No longer May 30, Memorial Day is the last Monday of the month — a day for cookouts, pool openings and ushering in the summer. But long ago (and in some places still) it was a day for a solemn parade and a trip to the cemetery.

Here is a Decoration Day parade from Brownsville, Texas, in 1916, photographed by Robert Runyon and downloaded from the Library of Congress’ American Memory project.

(Photo: The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection, [image number, e.g.,
00199], courtesy of
The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.)