Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Confederate Memorial Day

Today, April 26th,  is Confederate Memorial Day (even though the State of Alabama took "yesterday-Monday") as its holiday celebration!!! Regardless, the First White House was open yesterday, April 25th and we hope some of you visited..

We are excited that the Ladies Memorial Association has celebrated each Confederate Memorial Day (the real day)  beginning in 1886, without ceasing to remember.  Today was the celebration of the 144th annual program, held at 2:00 pm at Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, April 26, 2011. It began with an invocation by Dr. John Eidsmoe.

This was followed by a wonderful program, with Leslie Kirk, President of the LMA presiding. There was a presentation of the Colors and a salute to each of the flags. Cameron Napier gave a history of the LMA, followed by George Gayle, James Pickett and then a rousing speech by Bob Bradley.

Following the address, Ms. Kirk took the Memorial Wreath to the Confederate Monument. Afterwards, at least two of us went to the Northern Graves that are also in Oakwood and gave tribute there. We would certainly  hope that Northern men and women would do the same for our dead.

We ended up at the grave of Jefferson Davis's father-in-law, William Burr Howell, who died in Montgomery. The ladies of the White House Association gave the money for his very fine tombstone. This was a special moment.

Let us never cease to remember April 26, no matter what the year,  as Confederate Memorial Day!!! And lets continue to teach our children about this sacrifice, which is not taught correctly, if at all, in school.

No comments:

Post a Comment