135 years of decorating, honoring, remembering at Ozark County graves


Thornfield Cemetery

Across Ozark County’s hills and hollers, alongside county roads and state highways sprinkled with wildflowers, old cemeteries are blooming this week with bright, manmade color as families and friends continue the decades-old Decoration Day tradition. 

Although placing flowers and other mementoes on the graves of loved ones in fond remembrance has probably happened since the dawn of time, it’s thought that the first official Decoration Day observance in Ozark County was probably May 30, 1887. An item in the May 17, 1887, edition of the Ozark County News announced that “The Grand Army Post invites the presence and cooperation of all citizens” in what it said was “the first time Decoration Day has been observed in this county, and we are glad to see this beautiful custom of decorating the graves of the Nation’s dead coming into observance here.” 

Residents were invited to decorate the graves of Union soldiers and “deceased friends” in the Decoration Day event that, according to June 2, 1887, edition of the News, attracted “a large audience” who gathered at the court house and then “marched to the grave yard near town,” where speeches were “well rendered,” prayers were said, a salute was fired and the graves of former Union soldiers W. J. Conkin and J. W. Harlin “were decorated with flowers by the entire audience.” 

The procession then moved on down the creek road, now County Road 503, to what is now the Mammoth Cemetery (then called Sams Cemetery, recognizing the former owner of the land) “where the exercises were repeated,” according to the News. In a story about Decoration Day published in the March 26, 2008, edition of the Times, Mary Ruth Luna Sparks said the newspaper made no mention of any soldiers buried at the Sams Cemetery, but she noted that A Survey of Ozark County Cemeteries, published in 1985 by the Ozark County Genealogical and Historical Society, lists several men who had been buried there by 1887, so they might have been Civil War soldiers.

The group then reversed course and returned to the courthouse at 4 p.m.

“How the procession crossed Lick Creek was not mentioned,” Sparks wrote, adding that “to get to both cemeteries the group would have had to cross the creek at least four times.” She wasn’t able to determine when the biggest bridge across Lick Creek was built (now the bridge officially named G&B Bridge but known locally as the Cheeseplant Bridge), but she believes it must have been during the mid-20th century. Marv Looney, who graduated from Gainesville High School in 1945, told her he remembers having to wade the creek to get to school. [The late] Mary Ruth Landers told Sparks she remembered how cars would get stuck in the creek there.

Nationally, Memorial Day officially began in May 1868, when Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington national Cemetery would be decorated in May 30. 

“But Ozark County was a long way from a national cemetery where most of the county’s soldiers who had died in battle were buried,” Sparks noted, suggesting that was why it wasn’t until 1887 that the GAR post in Gainesville organized the first official Decoration Day commemoration here. 

As time passed, Decoration Day also became known as Memorial Day, and was recognized as a time to honor the heroes who had fallen in all American wars. The website military.com says, “After the two World Wars, Memorial Day was the term in more common usage, and the act of remembering all of the fallen took on a renewed importance.”

Congress officially designated the Memorial Day holiday in 1968 as the last Monday in May. The law went into effect in 1971, but by then the tradition of honoring the fallen – and also decorating the graves of other loved ones – was well established in many communities, especially those in the southern U.S., including Ozark County. And, for many, the term “Decoration Day” continues on. 

And throughout Ozark County, the decorating, remembering and honoring is happening again this week in many cemeteries. 

The procession then moved on down the creek road, now County Road 503, to what is now the Mammoth Cemetery (then called Sams Cemetery, recognizing the former owner of the land) “where the exercises were repeated,” according to the News. In a story about Decoration Day published in the March 26, 2008, edition of the Ozark County Times, Mary Ruth Luna Sparks said the newspaper made no mention of any soldiers buried at the Sams Cemetery, but she noted that A Survey of Ozark County Cemeteries, published in 1985 by the Ozark County Genealogical and Historical Society, lists several men who had been buried there by 1887, so they might have been Civil War soldiers.

The group then reversed course and returned to the courthouse at 4 p.m.

“How the procession crossed Lick Creek was not mentioned,” Sparks wrote, adding that “to get to both cemeteries the group would have had to cross the creek at least four times.” She wasn’t able to determine when the biggest bridge across Lick Creek was built (now the bridge officially named G&B Bridge but known locally as the Cheeseplant Bridge), but she believes it must have been during the mid-20th century. Marv Looney, who graduated from Gainesville High School in 1945, told her he remembers having to wade the creek to get to school. [The late] Mary Ruth Landers told Sparks she remembered how cars would get stuck in the creek there.

Nationally, Memorial Day officially began in May 1868, when Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington national Cemetery would be decorated in May 30. 

“But Ozark County was a long way from a national cemetery where most of the county’s soldiers who had died in battle were buried,” Sparks noted, suggesting that was why it wasn’t until 1887 that the GAR post in Gainesville organized the first official Decoration Day commemoration here. 

As time passed, Decoration Day also became known as Memorial Day, and was recognized as a time to honor the heroes who had fallen in all American wars. The website military.com says, “After the two World Wars, Memorial Day was the term in more common usage, and the act of remembering all of the fallen took on a renewed importance.”

Congress officially designated the Memorial Day holiday in 1968 as the last Monday in May. The law went into effect in 1971, but by then the tradition of honoring the fallen – and also decorating the graves of other loved ones – was well established in many communities, especially those in the southern U.S., including Ozark County. And, for many, the term “Decoration Day” continues on. 

And throughout Ozark County, the decorating, remembering and honoring is happening again this week in many cemeteries. 

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423