After the war the French government established ‘La Ligue des enfants de France et d’Amérique’ and asked Guerin to create the American branch. Possibly, Guerin worked together with Moia Michael who worked with others in Canada, Australia and the UK to get the poppy adopted as a symbol. Initially she went to the US in 1914 to lecture French, but basically s he raised funds for war efforts and after the war broke out the money was given to the American Red Cross to help war widows, orphans and the injured. Strange as it may sound, the original idea of the Poppy Day or Remembrance Day came from a French teacher, Anne Guerin. Her idea was successful and the poppy was adopted as the symbol of remembrance for war veterans both by the American and the British Legion in 1921. This was when she realised how much financial support these men needed, so she started to campaign and brought up the idea to sell poppies to raise money for the veterans. In 1918 she attended a conference where she wore a silk poppy pinned to her coat and gave 25 poppy pins to others.Īfter the war Michael taught a class of disabled servicemen at the University. She read McCrae’s poem and was inspired by it so that she wrote her own poem ‘We Shall Keep The Faith’. The American professor, Moina Michael left the University of Georgia in 1917 and became a volunteer worker for the American YMCA Overseas War Secretaries organization. The lime coming from the gravel enhanced the growing of poppies. Were there seriously poppies on the battle fields?Īccording to the scientific explanation battles generated lot of gravel which then got into the ground. It was published on 8 th December 1915 in the London magazine, The Punch. It is written from the point of view of the dead soldiers and considered to be one of the most beautiful war-poem.

This inspired the Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae to write the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ after he lost his friend in the battle of Ypres in May 1915. Why poppies?Īfter the Battle of Waterloo people noticed that poppies grew suddenly in the fields of the battle. Remembrance day is held on the Sunday closest to 11th November at 11am and not only those are remembered who lost their lives in the First World War but every veteran who served in the Services in all other conflicts since the First World War. Poppies are the symbol of the Remembrance Day which is held on 11 th November each year to commemorate the Armistice (11 th November 1918). After Halloween people start to wear poppies in the UK and even cars and busses are decorated with plastic flowers.

Manor matters poppy