Remembrance Sunday: a history of the poppy
The significance of poppies to Remembrance Sunday is largely the result of Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, believed to have been written on 3 May 1915.
The first two lines of the poem – ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row’ – records the growing of the poppies across some of the bloodiest battlefields of World War I.
An overseas American YWCA worker, Moina Michael, later published a poem herself in response to McCrae’s, and started selling silk poppies to raise funds for disabled veterans in Georgia.
Following her efforts, the American Legion Auxiliary adopted the poppy as symbol of remembrance in 1921....
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
The first two lines of the poem – ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row’ – records the growing of the poppies across some of the bloodiest battlefields of World War I.
An overseas American YWCA worker, Moina Michael, later published a poem herself in response to McCrae’s, and started selling silk poppies to raise funds for disabled veterans in Georgia.
Following her efforts, the American Legion Auxiliary adopted the poppy as symbol of remembrance in 1921....