A day for remembering: Memorial Day traces its roots back to the civil war and to a small town in Pennsylvania.

It was August 5, 1862, and summer vacation was already over in central Pennsylvania. Thirteen-year-old Sophie Keller and her friend giggled as they walked to school. They were eager to trade secrets with the classmates they hadn't seen since spring. But as they stepped onto the porch of Boalsburg Academy, everyone was strangely silent.

"What is the matter?" asked Sophie. "Bad news?"

A classmate answered. "President Lincoln has called for more volunteers and Professor Patterson is going."

The students' bright faces paled at the startling news.

Soon their teacher assured them it was true. He told them it was his duty as an able-bodied man to fight for his country and protect its freedoms. "Yes, I am going and not alone," Professor Patterson said, "for I shall take as many of my brave boys as can and will go with me."

Sophie looked instantly at her older brother. Daniel expected to enter college in September. But the Kellers were patriots. Great-grandfather Keller had fought in the War for Independence against England almost one hundred years ago. What would Daniel do?

That evening, the church bell summoned the villagers. After a prayer service, twenty-four-year-old Professor James J. Patterson rose. Sophie's heart raced as he read, alphabetically, the names of students:" ... Keller."

"Ready!" Daniel answered.

But Daniel's decision upset his mother, and he needed his father's permission to enlist at the age of seventeen.

"Let me go!" Daniel pleaded. "My country needs me, and I could never hold a book while the other boys were holding guns."

"Then go, my son," his father said, "and may God be with you."

Sophie was proud and glad for her brother. She also wished she were a boy and old enough to go with him.

Boalsburg Goes to War

That night more than a hundred Centre County men and boys joined the 148th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. Most people expected the war between the North and South to end a few months after it began in 1861. Instead, it raged on until 1865.

While the men were away from home, the women took care of the children, homes, farms, and businesses. In Boalsburg they gathered day after day at the academy, where Sophie and Daniel's mother led the Soldiers' Aid Society. They arranged band concerts to raise money for the sick, wounded, and needy soldiers.

They made clothing and packed food for the "boys in blue." Children helped to make bandages and slippers.

As they worked, they shared the latest war news. Corporal Daniel Keller had been wounded during the fighting at Chancellorsville, Virginia, on May 3, 1863. A year later, Captain Patterson was wounded at Petersburg. Sophie's sixteen-year-old friend Emma Hunter learned that her father, a surgeon, had died of typhoid at Annapolis, Maryland, on September 19, 1864.

The Start of Memorial Day

On a Sunday in October 1864, Sophie walked with Emma to put flowers on the new grave of Dr. Reuben Hunter. Elizabeth Myers had also come to decorate the grave of her son Amos, who had been killed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the year before. As Sophie, Emma, and Elizabeth shared their grief, they decided to share their flowers as well. They gathered more asters, vines, and mountain laurel, and laid a wreath on the grave of every soldier buried there.

They agreed to meet again on July 4, 1865, to decorate the graves of all who had given their lives for their country. Year after year, as they continued this remembrance, more people took part in it. By 1867, they shifted "Decoration Day" to May because flowers were more plentiful in spring.

Meanwhile, people in other towns throughout the country also honored their own war dead in much the same way. In Carbondale, Illinois, General John A. Logan spoke at a service where veterans decorated the graves of their fellow soldiers. He thought everyone should follow this custom. So, in 1868 General Logan, then commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, named May 30 as a national day "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country."

Although 26 towns now claim to be the first in the nation to celebrate Memorial Day, the people of Boalsburg believe that Emma Hunter, Sophie Keller, and Elizabeth Myers began that custom in October 1864. On May 29, 2000, townspeople placed a bronze life-sized statue of the ladies in the cemetery that they had decorated. Descendants of the three women were among the thousands of well-wishers to honor them--and every woman who has ever sent a loved one off to war.

Throughout the United States, people now observe the last Monday in May as Memorial Day. They put work aside to honor loved ones--men and women--with flowers, flags, parades, music, picnics, and speeches. They remember the sacrifices and bravery of their ancestors.