"Oh the Places You Will Go"
Remembrances of Memorial Day. The Grand Army of the Republic Highway
As I read Bob Whitcomb’s piece in yesterday’s edition of GoLocalProv, he wrote this of Memorial Day . . . Memorial Day, for example, goes back to 1868, when Gen. John Logan, as founder of a Union veterans organization named the Grand Army of the Republic, set May 30 as the date to put flowers at the graves of soldiers killed in what remains our most lethal war, estimated to have left more than 600,000 dead.
It took me to a piece I wrote for GoLocalProv in January 2021 and one I am reproducing because of its connection to this Great Day.
It starts . . . I was chatting with my friend Mike last week and he mentioned that when he was a kid, his family vacationed on Cape Cod every summer, traveling from their home in Pennsylvania and picking up Rte. 6 in Rhode Island for the final leg. Route 95 did not exist.
I remember our day trips from Providence to the Narragansett shore, much shorter than Mike’s travel, but slow and painful. The two-lane roads simply could not handle the traffic. “Dad are we there yet?” drove my father crazy. “Dam kids! Quiet. Be patient. I’ll take you the hell home!” I appreciate today that the best parts of the travel were the anticipation of our arrival and the ice cream stop on our way home.
Some weeks ago, as I was barreling east along Rte. 6 in Massachusetts after leaving the Best Buy at the Seekonk Mall, I noticed a sign, “GAR Highway.” Interesting.
Rte. 6 was once a main route in the U.S. highway system and the longest highway in the country. From 1936 to 1964, its western terminus was Long Beach, California. Imagine. Who knew?
While it currently runs east-northeast from Bishop, California, to Provincetown, Massachusetts, the route has been modified, basically chopped up, several times. And the GAR designation?
Linking men through their experience of the war, the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) became among the first organized advocacy groups in American politics, supporting voting rights for black veterans, promoting patriotic education, helping to make Memorial Day a national holiday, and lobbying the United States Congress to establish regular veterans' pensions. Its peak membership, at 410,000, was in 1890, and a high point of various Civil War commemorations.
The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War began pushing for the name in April 1934. Massachusetts was the first state to apply the name on February 2, 1937. It was not until 1948 that all states agreed. The highway was formally dedicated at the Long Beach end on May 3, 1953.
Major William L. Anderson, Jr. of the U.S. Army recommended that US 6 be designated the Grand Army of the Republic Highway to honor the American Civil War Veterans Association. The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy (U.S. Navy), Marines, and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service who served in the American Civil War. It was founded in 1866 and grew to include hundreds of local community units across the nation. It was dissolved in 1956 at the death of its last member, Albert Woolson (1850–1956) of Duluth, Minnesota.
There is much more to the history of this highway, but space does not allow for more in this column.
Writing of The GAR Highway reminded me of those road trips of our youth.
As Dr. Suess wrote:
“You’re off to great places,
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So, get on your way!”
We honor our Veterans on this Day
Memorial Day–the federal holiday in which we honor our veterans and remember those who died while in the armed services–originated in the aftermath of the Civil War. On both sides of that conflict, north and south, families and brothers-in-arms of the fallen came together in grassroots commemorations to lay flowers on the graves of the dead, in honor of their sacrifice. This day of remembrance was initially known as Decoration Day.
The national observance of Decoration Day, in part, is traced to an order by Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, the commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization of Civil War Union veterans. On May 5, 1868, Logan instructed members of the GAR that:
The 30th Day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.
Over the years, the meaning of Decoration Day evolved, gradually expanding from a commemoration of Civil War dead, into a day to honor fallen members of the American armed forces from all wars. In 1888, an American diplomatic delegation to Mexico visited Mexico City National Cemetery on Decoration Day. The delegation laid flowers at the Soldiers’ monument marking the graves of American troops who died in the Mexican war, in one of the earliest observances at a site that would eventually be maintained by the ABMC.
As the meaning of Decoration Day evolved, so did the name. By the late 19th century, many Americans were using the term Memorial Day.
Thanks, Ed, for stirring fond memories of my maternal grandfather’s farm on GAR in Swansea. Tony DiResto owned 7 acres right on Rt. 6 from 1945 for about 10 years. Growing up on Rill Street next to the U.S. Rubber Company, I remember our visits to “the farm” with great pleasure, especially the open spaces and clean air. The DiResto clan would convene at the farm in summers to help with the planting, harvesting, and selling of fruits and vegetables in his road-side stand. I even got to drive his tractor! For my puny efforts, Gramp always took care of his grandson when the summer was over. But the greatest treat was when he took the whole bunch of us to either Crescent Park or Rocky Point for an authentic New England shore dinner. Lovely memories indeed. And somehow, we all knew what the GAR Highway stood for! Ron DiPippo