![]() ![]() Michael died in 1944, remembered as the "Poppy Lady" for her part in memorializing service members. Before long, the flowers were being manufactured by disabled war veterans themselves. ![]() It became so popular as a symbol, that it was adopted by the American Legion Auxiliary and what would become the Royal British Legion.īy Armistice Day (now Veterans Day) 1921, millions of silk poppies were sold across the United States and England to help Great War veterans with housing and to help them find jobs. This experience led her to sell silk versions of the red poppy to raise money to support the veterans. (World War I Centennial Commission)Īt the University of Georgia, she taught classes of disabled war veterans. It inspired her to write her own poem "We Shall Keep the Faith" and to wear a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance. ![]() When the war ended, she returned to Georgia, where she read "In Flanders Fields" in 1918. She was also the daughter of a Confederate war veteran.Īfter the United States entered World War I, she volunteered for the YWCA in New York City. Michael was a distant relative of the patriot fighter Francis Marion, who fought the British in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War. When World War I broke out in 1914, American professor Moina Michael was in Germany and helped American tourists get back home during the war. The red poppy McCrae wrote about in 1915 can be traced back even further, to the Napoleonic Wars, where red poppies seemed to sprout spontaneously, even around the bodies of dead soldiers. Western Europe has been the setting for countless bloody battles and wars over the centuries. Yet, the kind of blooms the doctor saw that day had been popping up long before World War I. McCrae was treating the wounded in the days and weeks after the Second Battle of Ypres ended in May 1915, the former battleground was likely the perfect site for a poppy field. They also grow and bloom relatively quickly in spring. Each flower, however, can spill hundreds of seeds that will germinate almost anywhere, including the disturbed earth of a scarred battlefield. The red corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas) is an annual flower, meaning the flower grows for only one season, not to return unless replanted. It wasn't long before the chewed-up earth of the Ypres battlefield began to bloom waves of red corn poppies, the sight of which inspired McCrae to write the immortal poem, " In Flanders Fields." John McCrae was distraught at the loss of a good friend in the fighting. In the wake of Ypres, Canadian doctor Lt. ![]()
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