Memorial Day History, How Brick Remembers: 4 Things To Know

BRICK, NJ — Memorial Day is a holiday people throughout Brick and across America look forward to every year as the start of summer.

While many people are looking forward to the holiday weekend more than usual after a year where the coronavirus pandemic limited time spent with family and friends, it remains a solemn occasion, as the final Monday in May is a day to remember all American lives lost during military service.

In Brick, this year's Memorial Day commemoration will include a parade and a ceremony with speeches at the War Memorial in front of the Brick Township municipal building.

The parade begins at 10 a.m. Monday. It steps off on Pier Avenue and will go west on Route 70 then north on Chambers Bridge Road to the municipal building. Route 70 and Chambers Bridge Road will be closed from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., police said.

At the municipal building, the ceremony led by American Legion Post 348 and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8867 will include speeches by township officials and Legion and VFW representatives. The town's War Memorial honors Brick Township's war dead. William Duffy, a Brick resident and veteran, has compiled a list of the town's military dead.

Here are four things to know about the history of Memorial Day:

• It Was Originally Called Decoration Day: Remembering veterans who died while in military service in late May dates back to 1868, when Gen. John A. Logan called for a day of remembrance to honor the Northern lives lost amid battle during the Civil War that had ended just a few years earlier, according to History.com. Logan called it “Decoration Day,” which is how it was known for several years. As time passed, more and more people called it Memorial Day, History.com reported, and it became a federal holiday in 1971.

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• Birthplace Of Memorial Day: The Memorial Day holiday tradition in Waterloo, New York, dates back even longer than Logan’s call for a day of remembrance. Waterloo first celebrated on May 5, 1866, as local businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers and flags, according to History.com.

"The people of Waterloo are justly proud of this outstanding event in the history of their community," then-New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller said in 1966, when the federal government recognized the upstate village about midway between Rochester and Syracuse as the “birthplace of Memorial Day.”

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• A Civil War Holiday At First: Until World War I, Memorial Day was only meant to honor those who died while fighting for the Union in the Civil War. Southern states honored their war dead on a separate day. After the 116,000-plus American deaths in World War I, the holiday took on a new role to remember all who have died while serving in the military.

• National Moment Of Remembrance: Every year, a national moment of remembrance is held at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day. The midday time was chosen “because it is the time when many Americans are enjoying their freedoms on the national holiday,” according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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