Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 19, Number 21, DeMotte, Jasper County, 22 April 1949 — POPPY DAY FLOWERS ARRIVE FROM HOSPITAL [ARTICLE]

POPPY DAY FLOWERS ARRIVE FROM HOSPITAL

“The poppies are here!” This is the word which flashed through the ranks of DeMotte Unit of the American Legion Auxiliary, when a shipment of memorial poppies to be worn here on Poppy Day, May 28, arrived from Marion, where they were made by disabled war veterans, said Mrs'. Harrry Bierma, who heads the Poppy Day committee. The poppies, made of crepe pafier with wire stems, are exact replicas of the wild poppies which grew “between the crosses row on row” in the battle cemeteries in France and Belgium during World War 1. “They are nature’s floral tribute to those who died,” “and as soon as The American Legion and Auxiliary were organized after the war, we made them our memorial flower. When more young gave their lives in Europe’s pop-py-studded fields in World War 11, the poppy became their memorial flower, too, and it now signifies remembrance for American’s war dead, no matter in what part of the world they gave their lives.” The poppies received here are the work of disabled veterans in the Marion hospital, where poppy making is directed by the Indiana Department of the Auxiliary. The veterans not only earn badly needed money hy making the little red flowers,—but- the employment —is considered valuable as occupational therapy. Do you know— That at the time the American Legion Auxiliary adopted the poppy it pledged the profits from the poppy sales 100 percent to welfare relief for service men and women and their families, thus fulfilling the true meaning of the poppy—an emblem of faith faith which is being kept with all who died, through service to the living?