Decoration Day

When I see stacks of family photographs in antique malls, I regret the forgetting of lives. Unnamed, the faces stare back from late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century photos, and their descendants have lost their connection to the past.

My father strove to forge strong links to his family history. Every Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, began the same way. Early in the morning, my father finished milking the cows and feeding the chickens. He changed clothes so as to be more presentable. Then he lined up buckets by the hydrant in the yard of his house in Pine Village, Indiana. He filled the buckets with water. Next, he and my mother roamed about the yard to collect bouquets of flowers.

A Decoration Day Favorite of My Father: Iris Blossoms

Into the buckets went long-stemmed iris blossoms and nodding heads of peony bloom. Snowballs were tucked into bunches. Sprigs of lilac and bridal veil drooped around the handles. Soon, my father had loaded the buckets in the trunk of the Chevrolet, and we were on our way to the cemetery.

An annual lesson in genealogy was taught as my father led my brother and me from grave to grave of ancestors. At each marker, my father knelt, carefully selected flowers, and spread them on the ground in an artistic arrangement. With his trademark tranquil voice, he told stories about the person being honored. I was just a kid blissfully unaware of how important my father’s stories were, but they were soaking into my memory year by year. Along with his memories came values such as respect for the wisdom of elders.

Beside my great great grandfather Daniel Fenton’s tombstone flew an American flag. The 32-year-old Daniel M. Fenton was mustered into Company G of the 100th Indiana Volunteers on September 27, 1862, at Indianapolis, whereupon he was paid a $25 bounty. Daniel stood five feet six inches tall. He had a fair complexion with light hair and blue eyes. He was a musician. I have Daniel’s fife, but it is no longer playable. The 100th Indiana Volunteers supported at Vicksburg and Knoxville. The regiment fought in the most exposed location on Missionary Ridge and in a similarly deadly position at Kennesaw Mountain. The 100th supported again at Atlanta and experienced yet another sharp battle at the beginning of General William T. Sherman’s march toward Savannah. It was at Grand Junction, Tennessee, in February of 1863 that Daniel suffered from the privations of a cold winter in the field. Fifers played music to march the armies toward battle and helped to clear the field of the wounded and dead after battle. Musicians in the Civil War often joined in the fighting, and, apparently, Daniel was no exception. Daniel saw more than he wanted to see of the terror of warfare, and, physically, he broke down. For the rest of his life, he complained of chronic diarrhea and rheumatism from the exposure he suffered in Tennessee. His medical record indicates that he had jaundice and disease of the liver. Captain Eli J. Sherlock’s 1896 book entitled Memorabilia of the Marches and Battles in Which the One Hundredth Regiment of Indiana Infantry Volunteers Took an Active Part (available online at http://www.archive.org/details/memorabiliaofmar00sher) provides an excellent summary of the 100th Indiana. In his roster for Company G, Sherlock describes only three of the men. He gives this account of Daniel: “Fenton, Daniel M. Served during the war; mustered out June 8, ‘65. He was a brave soldier and enjoyed the respect of his superior officers and all who knew him.” Daniel attended many reunions of Civil War veterans. In Sherlock’s photograph of a reunion in Auburn, Indiana, Daniel is second from the left in the back row.

Every Memorial Day, my father helped me appreciate the fact that Daniel was not a stone in a cemetery but a human being who had lived a brave life. At each marker where my father placed the purple iris and the pink peony, I absorbed reverence for forebears and reverence for life.