Between the Stacks

The Library will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday May 29. In response to the young patron who asked me why we were closed on that day, here is the answer. Memorial Day came out of the horrific casualties the United States suffered on both sides during the Civil War. On May 5, 1868, General John Logan, a Union general, declared there would be a yearly observance to honor those who had died in the Civil War. The day was originally entitled Decoration Day and only celebrated in the northern states. The Southern states kept their own form of Memorial Day for their dead, until the day was b...