http://www.rsa.org.nz/remem/poppy_sig.html
Significance of the Poppy
The story of how the Poppy became an international symbol of remembrance
is a remarkable one.
In Flanders Fields
John McCrae
Lt-Col John McCrae
The association of the red poppy — the Flanders Poppy — with battlefield
deaths as a natural symbol of resurrection and remembrance dates back to
the Napoleonic Wars when poppies were the first plant to grow in the
churned up soil of soldiers' graves in the area of Flanders.
This connection between the red poppy and war dead was renewed over a
century later on the Western Front during the First World War.
It was verses by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918), a Canadian
Medical Officer, which began the intriguing process by which the
Flanders Poppy became immortalised worldwide as the symbol of
remembrance: The inspiration for the verses had been the death of a
fellow officer, Lt Alexis Helmer, of the 1st Brigade Canadian Field
Artillery on 2 May 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres (Ieper) in
western Belgium, for whom McCrae had performed the burial service.
McCrae's verses, which he had scribbled in pencil on a page torn from
his despatch book, were sent anonymously by a fellow officer to the
English magazine, Punch, which published them under the title 'In
Flanders Fields' on 8 December 1915.
The Challenge
Three years later, McCrae himself died of pneumonia at Wimereux near
Boulogne, France, on 28 January 1918. On his deathbed, McCrae reportedly
lay down the challenge:
"Tell them this, if ye break faith with us who die,
we shall not sleep."
The Response
Among the many people moved by McCrae's poem a YMCA canteen worker in
New York, Miss Moina Michael (1869-1944), who, two days before the
Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918, wrote a reply entitled 'We
Shall Keep the Faith':
"We Shall Keep the Faith"
Oh! You who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet-to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With all who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy red
We wear in honour of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
Michael also originated the idea of the red poppy as a symbol of
remembrance.
Origins of the Memorial Poppy
Moina Michael
The idea for the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy, Moina Michael recalled
in her 1941 book The Miracle Flower, came to her while working at the
YMCA Overseas War Secretaries' Headquarters on a Saturday morning, 9
November 1918. The Twenty-Fifth Conference of the Overseas YMCA War
Secretaries was in progress. During a lull in proceedings Moina glanced
through a copy of the November Ladies Home Journal and came across
McCrae's poem re-titled "We Shall Not Sleep". The last few lines
transfixed her:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Moina Michael hereafter made a personal pledge to 'keep the faith' and
vowed always to wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields as a symbol of
remembrance. Compelled to make a note of this pledge she hastily
scribbled her response, entitled "We Shall Keep the Faith", on the back
of a used envelope.
When the Conference delegates gave Moina a gift of ten dollars in
appreciation of her assistance, she went to a New York department store
and purchased 25 artificial red poppies and, pinning one on her own
collar, distributed the remainder to the YMCA secretaries with an
explanation of her motivation. She viewed this act as the first group
distribution of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy.
Moina Michael hereafter tirelessly campaigned to get the poppy adopted
as a national symbol of remembrance. In September 1920 the American
Legion adopted the Poppy as such at its annual Convention. Attending
that Convention was a French woman who was about to promote the poppy —
as a symbol of remembrance — throughout the world.
International Symbol of Remembrance
widows making poppies
French widows, many with children on their laps, hand-making hundreds of
thousands of poppies in the early 1920s for distribution to veterans
organisations around the world, including the NZRSA.
Madame E. Guérin, conceived the idea of widows manufacturing artificial
poppies in the devastated areas of Northern France which then could be
sold by veterans' organisations worldwide for their own veterans and
dependants as well as the benefit of destitute French children.
Throughout 1920-21, Guérin and her representatives approached veteran
organisations' in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand and urged them to adopt the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.
It was as a result of the efforts of Michael and Guérin — both of whom
became known endearingly as the "Poppy Lady" — that the poppy became an
international symbol of remembrance.
