Among the public houses decorated the most noticeable were the Burnett House, Thedieck & Ratermann, Moerhing Bros. and the Valley City House. The private residences of W. D. Hughes, Mrs. John Mathers, General Murray and Col. Zinn were beautified with flags, cedar and flowers. Many others were also decorated in a beautiful and pretty manner.

At about 1 o’clock the line began forming in front of the Monumental Building and after some delay, took up the line of march according to the programme. Marshal of the day, Captain E. E. Nutt, led the van. After him came the veterans. William Fielding and William Van Fossen marched at the head of the veterans, and carried the war scarred colors of the old 99th Ohio Regiment. The flag Mr. Van Fossen carried was the same one he so gallantly and triumphantly bore through the war. Both of the flags bore unmistakable evidence of having seen service. They were faded, rent and soiled, yet the red, white and blue—the colors all true Americans hold dear—still gleamed forth.

Then came the little girls, innocent in their youth, giving to the procession a pleasing effect, and making a beautiful picture. The Fire Department followed, and a finer looking set of men never formed in procession stalwart, strong, and noble in their bearing. The hose reels of the fire companies Tawawa, No. 1, Valley City, No. 2, Niagara, No. 3, and the Pioneer Hook and Ladder Wagon, were all neat and clean as could be, and trimmed, as they were, with evergreens, flags and flowers, looked quite pretty and attractive. The men were well drilled, and marched with the precision and correctness of trained soldiers.

The bands discoursing their finest music, followed in the wake of the Fire Department. Tappe’s band in their handsome and showy uniforms, with their new drum major Adam Miller, with his tall bear skin hat, gorgeous uniform and glistening bright staff, which he twirled with a practiced and skilled hand, were the cynosure of all eyes. The Fire Department was followed by the Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias. The carriages brought up rear and formed a long line. The vehicle that led was profusely decked with flowers and evergreens. It had three mottoes bearing the inscriptions, "Peace and Good Will to All," "Honor the Dead," and "God Bless our Country."

Having marched through the principal streets according to the programme, the procession wended its way to the different cemeteries, where the touching and commendable rites of strewing flowers upon the resting places of our sleeping heroes were gone through with. Little girls dressed in white spread the flowers. After all the graves had been decorated, the immense concourse of people came back to town and repaired to the court house square to listen to the orator of the day, Hon. Durbin Ward.

Rev. R. McCaslin opened with prayer, and was followed with an appropriate song by a selected choir. W. D. Davies, at the close of the song, arose and introduced Hon. Durbin Ward who spoke in an eloquent and interesting manner.

He said the deepest emotions of the human hearts are evident by the ceremonies of this day. In the springtime of the year when all nature is bursting into new life and bloom, we come here to honor the dead. We strew on the ashes of the departed the final mementos of the passing hour and while we, in token of affection, spread flowers on the soldiers graves all over the broad land, loving hearts are performing kindred rites.

Federal and Confederate, alike, are clasping in friendly grasped hands once raised in deadly combat, and vying with each other in honors to the fallen on either side. God bless the reconciliation! The storms of civil war are over, and these touching ceremonies, blending the affections and warming the patriotism of all sections and races, are binding us all, let us hope, in the silken bonds of peace and perpetual union.

On this Memorial Day, when thousands are decorating these sacred little mounds of earth, how many a pulseless heart lies mouldering in the shady groves of the South! Side by side the hardy son of the North and the chivalrous Southern lie in repose, covered by the same green award, decked by nature with the fragrant wild flower, blooming in impartial love, while the woodlark is caroling a requiem to the memory of both.

When we honor the memory of our fallen brethren, let us in a Christian spirit banish every feeling of animosity and every barrier to National brotherhood. Our work on this occasion is no idle ceremony. It is a heart worship of the survivor for the departed. These dead are the buried children of the nation. They gave their lives to the Republic and it is fitting that the people for whom they died should signalize by these public demonstrations their appreciation of the gift. Private affection rears monuments to mark the resting-place of loved ones who are gone, and shall the people grudge a few hours annually to the memories of their heroic dead.

To 1899
To 1949
To 1974

No people can be progressive or strong without a stern and vigorous patriotism. Cold philosophy may be cosmopolitan, but a nation, truly, is in a peculiar sense a family, and is most powerful when this feeling of brotherhood is strongest. It was this very patriotism which saved our Union in the late struggle. Our past glories, our future hopes, nerved the young soldier, who could little reason of the principles of our constitutional system, and the consciousness that he was breaking away from the land of Washington and Hancock shook the faith and weakened the courage of the Rebel. In spite of his new born allegiance, he wept at the sight of the old flag, and felt he had got home once more when he saw it floating again over his head.

Patriotism is national strength. Without it forts, arsenals, war ships and armies turn to ashes at the touch of disaster. With it the feeblest people are invincibly armed, impregnably fortified. But the patriotism of sentiment is not enough to give that robust vigor which American patriotism deserves to have. Our intellectual conception of the duties of citizenship, and of the obligations of the people to constitutional government, must supplement the more feminine influence of devotion to country as the home of our people. The speaker said that all growing countries had their revolutions, and no country could reach harmony without a struggle for existence or mastery. He thought no people ever returned to tranquility so soon after a fierce conflict as the North and South. He hoped the defeated Southerners would be welcomed back to the Union as Brethren, and not as aliens.

He closed by saying that he hoped the day was not far distant in the future when the North and South would resume the brotherly love and relations that they had before the storm of war burst upon them. The meeting was dismissed by singing the doxology and the invoking of divine blessing by Rev. O. Kennedy. And so closed a day that will be remembered with pleasure by the citizens of Sidney.

1899, The Tradition Continues

Memorial ceremonies in Sidney 100 years ago continued the reverent honor paid to Shelby County fallen soldiers. References to the Civil War still predominated, but the fallen of another conflict, the Spanish-American War, received their due. And, there was another difference from the first ceremony in 1877: Decoration Day was now known as Memorial Day, as it had been since 1882.