A Union Widow and a Confederate Mother Clasp Hands at an Unknown Grave
In Sedro, Washington, Memorial Day brought together two women on opposite sides of the Civil War—over a flower-covered mound meant to stand for all the dead.
Memorial Day at Sedro.
Sedro, May 31.—Special.—Memorial services began last Sabbath, when Rev. O. L. Cuddy preached a Memorial sermon to a large audience filling the auditorium and lecture room of the Methodist Episcopal church, which had been beautifully decorated with flags, bunting, flowers, etc. At 2 p. m. yesterday a procession consisting of members of the G. A. R., citizens, ladies and children formed at Woolley and, headed by the Woolley cornet band, marched to a mound representing an unknown grave near the Methodist Episcopal church. There Mrs. M. Gillespie, the wife of a member of the G. A. R., and Mrs. Grace, a lady who lost two sons in the Confederate army, clasped hands over the mound while it was covered with flowers and the choir rendered beautiful music. The procession repaired to the Methodist Episcopal church, where appropriate services were observed, closing with an address by ex-Commander M. Holmes, of Seattle.
“Mrs. M. Gillespie, the wife of a member of the G. A. R., and Mrs. Grace, a lady who lost two sons in the Confederate army, clasped hands over the mound while it was covered with flowers.”
The 1895 ceremony in Sedro (now Sedro-Woolley) took place only three decades after Appomattox, when Memorial Day was still a raw ritual for families divided by the war. Its image of two grieving mothers reaching across the divide feels newly relevant in a country still fighting over how to remember its conflicts.
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