Folks begin arriving for the 2 p.m. Memorial Day program at the Cannon City Cemetery.
NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO, students paraded with lilac wreaths from their country school a short distance to the Cannon City Cemetery to honor the war dead.
The cemetery fence decorated for Memorial Day.
Song sheets are distributed to those in attendance and then collected at the end of the program.
Cannon City resident Bob Lewis, a veteran, arrives for the service. Later Bob, a former bugler, will share info about the Rice County Drum and Bugle Corps.
Today there is no “Death March” music, only patriotic songs. There is no school picnic like that after the long ago Memorial Day parade to this rural Rice County, Minnesota, cemetery on the edge of Cannon City some five miles northeast of Faribault.
Off to pick dandelions among tombstones.
But the children still come, some attentive to the ceremony led by Mel Sanborn, others darting, this Memorial Day, among tombstones to gather bouquets of dandelions. Later, they will toss dandelions into a flower bed ringing the American flag and carry other clutches home. It is a sweet moment to witness.
The program opens with singing of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Steve Bonde is on the bugle.
Musicians’ song sheets.
Jean Pederson listens after reciting “In Flanders Fields.”
I am here, an observer and a participant in this grassroots patriotic ceremony which, year after year, remains mostly the same—singing of “The Star Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee;” names of the war dead buried here read; recitation of “In Flanders Fields” and “The Pledge of Allegiance;” and reading of “The Gettysburg Address; and the bugler sounding “Taps.”
Kathleen Kanne reads Walt Whitman’s poem, “Reconciliation.”
This year, the presentation of Walt Whitman’s “Reconciliation,” the reading of a patriotic-themed newspaper clipping, singing of “Fightin’ Side of Me,” a brief history given of Rice County’s Drum and Bugle Corps and the bugling of “Revelry” are added to the semi formal ceremony.
A soldier’s grave, flagged for Memorial Day.
Musician Don Chester leads the musical selections along with his wife, Judy.
Between the tombstones, below the flag…
Steve Bonde ends the program by playing “Revelry.”
This all presented on the grassy space between aged tombstones in the shadow of the American flag audibly flapping in the breeze. The comparison is not lost on me as Jean Pederson tells of poppies gently swaying in the wind of Flanders Fields.
FYI: To read previous posts on Memorial Day observances at the Cannon City Cemetery, click here and then click here.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Nice that this is still a thriving tradition—-it is important to maintain this one, isn’t it?
Yes, it is, and now they are talking about how to mark the 100th annual celebration in some special way.
Beautiful
Thank you. It was, a lovely ceremony.
When I was growing up in Belview (just a few long years ago), there was a procession on Memorial Day, that went from the school all the way to the Belview Cemetary (between 1 to 2 miles). Always Legion color guard, Belview marching band in full uniform, Legion vets and the Auxillary (all in full uniform), and sometimes a few floats with dignitaries or vets that could not make the walk. Small town (population around 400), but with deepest respect for all the Veterans. Great ceremony at the cemetery. Everybody wearing their Poppies. Back in the day…nobody missed this event. Sure wish the current generation could cherish and honor our Vets like they have in the past.
Oooh-Rah! Thanks to all the Veterans.
Thanks for those remembrances of Belview’s celebration. Brad, I have an interesting photo I will be emailing you from Belview.
It sure looks like you celebrated Memorial Day beautifully. You have such a lovely and beautiful national anthem. Ours is dreadful. It used to be ‘God Save the Queen’ but it was changed to ‘Advance Australia Fair’ officially in 1984. It’s such a shocker of an anthem and no one likes it! xx
Perhaps time for a revolution to get that national anthem changed?
So glad to see a traditional Memorial Day observance as opposed to it being the three day weekend that kicks off summer.
I’ve really grown to appreciate this grassroots observance.