Boalsburg is a charming village in central PA near Penn State University. The custom of decorating soldiers graves began during the Civil War and was originally known as “Decoration Day,” which is what my grandmother always called this day of reflection.
The men of Boalsburg, an abolitionist community in Centre County, led by Professor James Patterson, joined the Union Army in response to a call for volunteers by President Abraham Lincoln. The women of Boalsburg, with their husbands, sons and brothers at war, organized daily meetings at the Boalsburg Academy. They prepared packages and sewed and knit uniforms for their men at war. They arranged for the Boalsburg Brass Band to perform concerts to raise funds for wounded soldiers.
The men of Boalsburg suffered multiple causalities throughout the Civil War. It was the fifth casualty, the death of Dr. Reuben Hunter, on September 19, 1864, that inspired three women to visit the cemetery and decorate the graves of the fallen men. The three women, Emma Hunter, daughter of Dr. Reuben Hunter, Elizabeth Meyer, whose son Amos Meyer, was killed at the battle of Gettysburg, and Sophie Keller, decided to meet the following Sunday, share a bouquet of flowers to decorate the graves of their family members and friends.
After the decorating the graves of the recently fallen Boalsburg soldiers, they also decorated the graves of those men who had died in the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War.
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