I also checked Robert Rutherdale’s book, Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to the Great War. He mentions a couple instances of poppies being used as a symbol in WW I writing, usually as a representation of the good memories of soldiers. This same sequence of events was included in an article for The National Post on the history of poppies, by Jon Weier and Chris Schultz.Įven Jonathan Vance’s book on the commemoration of WW I, Death So Noble, only contains a couple of references to poppies. Nash-Chambers’ main source for this information was Bev Dietrich, then Curator at the Guelph Civic Museum (since retired), who also published her own piece on the subject “John McCrae and McCrae House: Keeping the Faith for Those Who Died,” in a local magazine her main source of information appears to be clippings from the scrapbook of Jeanie Matthew McCrae (McCrae’s aunt), held at McCrae House. However, the article does not explain how the poppy made the jump from Britain to Canada. The symbol was then adopted by the American, British, and Canadian Legions, and the first “Poppy Day” was held in Canada and Britain on November 11, 1921. From there, disabled British veterans began to produce the poppies themselves. In 1921, she visited London and convinced the British Legion to purchase them. Guerin organized a group of French widows and orphans who made artificial poppies to sell, using the proceeds to support themselves. Michael was inspired to create the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy Fund after reading a copy of McCrae’s poem, and she resolved to make and sell poppies to raise money for veterans. From there, two women, Moina Michael (who was American) and Anne Guerin (who was French) move to the centre of this relatively poorly known story. In it, Nash-Chambers connects the publication of a collection of McCrae’s poems in 1919 to a rise in the idea of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance. I could only find one scholarly article, Deborah Nash-Chambers’ 2015 piece, “Memorializing Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae Civic Commemoration and the 100 th Anniversary of ‘In Flanders Fields,’” that dealt with the subject in any way. However, what happened after, particularly how they made the jump to Canada, that is rather unclear. If you’re like me, you had to memorize and recite “In Flanders Fields,” by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae in elementary school. The origins of the Remembrance Day poppy are pretty well known. In today’s blog post, we’re going to talk about what I uncovered, take a look at the history of the poppy, what it means to wear one, and how we learn from the past. Since I don’t like unanswered questions, I decided to dig a little bit deeper to see what I could find. But it did make me start realizing that we don’t know very much about the poppy’s history as a symbol in Canada. That is one hell of a loaded sentence, especially when we are still in the midst of Monument Wars. But not commemorating past wars would mean we don’t learn from history.” “Poppies are not pro-war, they are a symbol of respect for those who sacrificed everything for our safety. One of the comments caught the attention of Tina Adcock and myself: I would like to thank everyone who participated for their contributions and for making this blog post much more nuanced.Ī few weeks ago, the Royal British Legion posted a series of images designed to bust some prevalent myths about what poppies mean. Finally, many of the points raised in this blog post emerged out of online conversations about wearing poppies, both on Facebook and Twitter. A special thank-you goes to Christina Wakefield for supplying me with information about the 1921 Great War Veterans Association. I would also like to thank the individuals who read and commented on previous versions of this draft, including Tina Adcock, Andrew Nurse, Jon Weier, Chris Schultz, and Maj. So I would like to send her a huge extra-special thank-you. This post was inspired by a suggestion from Tina Adcock, and without her support and encouragement, it probably would have remained unwritten. This post by Andrea Eidinger originally appeared on Unwritten Histories.
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