Memorial Day

When my parents were alive, they would do something I thought was a little crazy on Memorial Day.  They would load up their car with potted flowers they picked up a fews weeks before, from Stuart and Sherry's greenhouse and head out for a day road trip. I know that doesn't sound crazy but the actual road trip part does.  They would go to Dubuque where Dad's parents and other family members are buried and leave the potted flowers on the graves.  Dubuque is a 1 and 1/2 hour drive. They would then drive to Earlville, 1/2 hour away from Dubuque, where Mom's family is buried and put potted plants on their graves.  The would then head to Greeley to my cousin, their niece's house for lunch. Earlville to Greeley is a short 15 minute drive.

After lunch they would go back to the Earlville to pick up the flowers, then back to Dubuque to pick up those flowers, and then head home. The flowers would then get planted in their yard or maybe sometimes back to the greenhouse. They did this every year and as they got older, I would try to talk them out of it, or at least just leave the flowers there on the graves.  Mom refused and said they would always do it. I would get so worried about them driving all day but then my sister Mary started going with them.

Now that my parents are gone and I am up here, I knew I needed to go to the cemeteries. Mike was in his hometown, Lisbon that weekend because his high school was having their annual banquet and was honoring his class of 1977, yes 40 years.  So Mary and I decided to go but we had a little problem. We had planted all of the flowers we got from the greenhouse when we were up there.  Mom never liked people spending money on flowers so we  thought maybe we could go to Wisconsin to get flowers and then to the cemeteries but that would be too long of a drive for us.  We then remembered Mom and Dad on Fridays, would go to the wholesale flower warehouse in Davenport and get cut flowers the warehouse was not planning on selling. Mom and Dad would then deliver them around town to nursing homes, their church, and other places. Mom had just won volunteer of the year for doing this, right before she died.  Before Mom died, she handed over the flower duties to another church member. I called her up and asked if we could have some flowers to take to Mom and Dad's grave. She thought that was an excellent idea.

I then remembered years ago on Memorial Day, we went to a ceremony at the Church across from Sherry's house in Wisconsin. Mary, Sherry and I cried during that ceremony because it was so moving. I told Mary I would like to go again.

Monday morning Mary and I went to Earlville and put four roses on Mom's grave and four roses on Dad's. The cemetery had also put a WWII flag up for Dad. Our cousin Sandy (we think it was Sandy) had already been there to leave flowers.  We also left roses for Grandma and Bop. I didn't take picture of their headstones.

We then went to Dubuque to leave roses on Dad's parents, our grandparent's graves.
I had never met Julius or Mary. We always thought as kids how weird it was to see Mary Walling on a headstone when our sister was Mary Walling.

We then realized that Great Aunt Dory was next to Mary. I have recently found a recipe for Great Aunt Dory's caramel cookies and have been baking them quite often. I just happened to bake a batch the night before to take on our trip! So Mary, my sister alive next to me, and I ate a cookie over Dory's grave and left one for her.

We were not happy about all the tall grass we had to pull away to take these pictures.  It is usually a well kept cemetery.

We were glad we were leaving cut flowers so we wouldn't feel like we had to go back and get potted ones. We probably wouldn't go back and pick them up anyway.

We then drove on to Wisconsin to spend the night with Sherry and family.  Here is Mary, Al and Sherry.  Please don't be upset that I included this picture, Mary and Sherry!

In the morning we walked across the street to the Church.

The three of us teared up again.
When I asked the Legion guys if I could take a picture of their guns, they were more than happy to let me take a picture, and one guy wanted me to take a picture of him holding a gun.

We also got a little history lesson. The guns are refurbished from WWII and the Korean wars. They have six blanks and two real bullets. They shoot three blanks at every cemetery so they can do two cemeteries without reloading. It only works if there are two real bullets in the mag but they are blocked somehow from being shot. I am probably not repeating that correctly but it was very interesting when they were telling us this. They were so happy to tell us!

Mary and I loaded up my car full of plants again and headed home. I didn't take pictures of the greenhouse this time but it looked like Stuart had really sold quite a bit.  As soon as everything is blooming in our yard, I will take pictures.