Memorial Day Thoughts

Memorial Day. . .
   We're always grateful for an extra day off work or out of school. It's a chance to set our picnic tables with red, white, and blue while we cook out and enjoy the "unofficial" early start of summer.

    Gratitude is indeed the right response, but the origin of the holiday is a solemn one. 

 "Memorial Day began as a way to honor those who died in the Civil War and has become a day to honor all American veterans who gave their lives in sacrifice to our nation."

From the National Archives and Records Administration: Click Here

  In Madison County, many groups have emphasized remembrance over the years. One example is the Ladies Auxiliary to the Soldiers of WWI, USA. 

     The Tennessee Room has a selection of resources to use in the research of casualties from Madison County.  These include:

      World War Veterans and Ex-Servicemen of Madison County, State of Tennessee, compiled under the direction of Mrs. Rutledge Smith, Historian of Tennessee Department of the American Legion Auxiliary, 1933-1936. Pages 191-201 list the local men killed in action.

      Monument to Healing: Two Soldiers and the Good Death, 1862, 1914 by Charles E. Cox & Spurgeon King, ed. by Jacque Hillman. The book focuses of the loss of one soldier in Madison County during the Civil War.

      More Than Names on a Wall by John R. Long III.  Madison County Historian "Ricky" Long researched the names on the Veterans Memorial monument at Liberty Garden Park.

      The genealogy database Fold3 is a genealogical military record resource available through the Tennessee Room public computers and on the Jackson-Madison County Library webpage tab "E-Resources." Sign in with your library card number to use the database away from the library.  Click Here

Learn more about these honored men. . .                          
                             . . . and remember them.