Memorial Day – 1926

Here's hoping you have a safe, enjoyable and meaningful Memorial Day 2026.

One hundred years ago, the holiday's evolution from its original name – Decoration Day – to that of Memorial Day seemed to have been complete, judging from the articles below on the front page of the Saturday, May 29, 1926 Lorain Journal. 

So who is the wizened gentleman in the large illustration? That's General Josh A. Logan, who as the article notes, "is credited with the first general proclamation setting aside one Memorial Day each year as a day of tribute.

"In 1868, when Logan was commander-in-chief of the G.A.R., story has it that his wife returned from a southern visit and told how the grave of each Confederate soldier at Petersburg was decorated with a wreath and a Confederate flag.

"It was then that "Black Eagle" Logan issued an order from G.A. R. headquarters on May 5, 1868, making Memorial Day a northern as well as a southern custom."

Click here to read a more detailed historical account of the origin of the holiday on the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs website.

Elsewhere on that same front page: "In Flanders Field," the well-known WWI poem; and an article listing the number of war dead from the six wars that the U.S. had fought up to that point.