Poppies a remembrance of fallen veterans

As a child, I didn’t realize the significance of Memorial Day. I knew it as Decoration Day, and before I left home, in 1968, we put flowers on all relatives’ graves that we knew. The only relative ignored was the father of my great grandfather, Grover, and my great, great uncles Luther and Lee. Their father was a veteran of the Civil War, Reed Perry Debo.

In my 20s, living in California, I could drive “in the hills” outside Livermore, California, and see poppies growing wild. My soon-to-be husband was a veteran, but neither of us was in a veteran’s organization.

In Ekalaka he joined VFW and la...