This year’s Bradford American Legion Post 108 Miss Poppy, 7-year-old Maelynn Austin, can tell you anything you might want to know about the history of the American flag.
The Post and its auxiliary annually choose a child from the community to represent the Poppy Program during Memorial Day events and National Poppy Day, observed the Friday before Memorial Day.
The patriotic youngster is the daughter of Michael and Monica Austin of Bradford.
Monica, VFW quartermaster, reflected on the importance of raising patriotic children today.
“I think it is necessary because a person without patriotism will never understand the meaning of our flag or the sacrifice that our veterans have made,” Monica said. “There is a lot that goes into making us free and we all need to remain grateful for that.”
For the last several years, Maelynn has joined her family as they maintain graves and place flags at cemeteries.
“She and her brother also painstakingly come with me to the VFW meetings if their father is busy,” Monica said. “They both sit in the back right there so that I can do my duties.”
One of the things she is looking forward to the most about being Miss Poppy is getting to ride on the truck in Bradford’s Memorial Day parade at 10 a.m. Monday.
The history of poppies and war goes back centuries, according to the BBC. Reports of poppies springing up following a battle go back as far as Ghenghis Khan. It is said after he destroyed his enemies the fields would fill with white poppies springing from the blood-soaked soil. There are both white and red poppy varieties.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the same phenomenon could be seen. Writers often made the natural association between the dark red petals and the spilled blood of the fallen.
During the fighting at Flanders Fields, from 1914 to 1918, the flowers once again grew. The phenomenon was immortalized by Canadian poet Dr. John McCrae. He was attached to the Canadian 1st Field Artillery Brigade when he penned the famous poem, “In Flanders Field.”
The poppy that grew on those battlefields is the papaver rhoeas, a wildflower found all over northern Europe. Its seeds can stay dormant in the soil for many years. They only sprout once the soil has been disturbed and there is no competing vegetation on the surface. With extensive trench warfare, the entire Western Front was one huge map of tunnels and shelled out craters. Therefore, the poppies bloomed like never before.
During its 1922 national convention, the VFW officially adopted the poppy as a symbol of those veterans who lost their lives in service to our country. Later that year, they organized the first nationwide distribution of poppies on Memorial Day.
In 1924, the VFW officially began the Buddy Poppy program, where needy and wounded veterans receive compensation for hand-making the flowers, which are then distributed each Memorial Day.
Proceeds from the sale of the poppies also supports veterans’ rehabilitation and support programs, as well as partially supporting the VFW National Home.
The poignant words of Dr. McCrae still echo through the years, reminding all of us that our freedom comes at a high cost.
“We are the Dead.
Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.”
