Monday Memories: Wearing the poppy honored the fallen, aided veterans and soldiers

Poppies bloom on people’s lapels the Friday before Memorial Day to mark the sacrifice of fallen soldiers and raise money for veterans, soldiers and their families who need financial and medical help.

In this 1964 Toledo Times photo, Vikki Bonkowski, 5, pins a poppy on Vice Mayor Thaddeus Walinski’s lapel. Auxiliary units of the American Legion passed out flowers made by hospitalized veterans during the annual Poppy Day sales. The red poppy has been a symbol of sacrifice since World War I, and the American Legion Auxiliary has run the program since 1921.

According to the American Legion’s website, poppy plants proliferated in Europe after WWI, nourished by soil enriched with lime from the rubble.

The red flower came to symbolize the blood shed during the war after Punch magazine published Lt. Col. John McCray’s poem , ‘In Flanders Fields’, in 1915. The opening verse begins with: “In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row by row.”

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