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www.mybaycity.com April 18, 2004
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Memorial Day 2002 Services at Pine Ridge Cemetary

Four Churches Aided by Birney Family to be Recognized on Memorial Day

Event at Pine Ridge Cemetery to Feature Church Tributes, Music, Readings

April 18, 2004       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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      Each year recently the Friends of Historic Pine Ridge Cemetery have gathered with guests on Memorial Day in recollection of Bay City's fabulous history.

      This year the gathering at noon on May 31 will present special tributes to four churches, St. Stanislaus, Trinity Episcopal, First Presbyterian and St. Mary, all of which were aided in their formation by James G. Birney, his brother-in-law Dr. Daniel Fitzhugh and members of their families. A memorial will be given in honor of Rt. Rev. David Bell Birney IV, who served as a missionary in Africa and as bishop of Idaho and assistant bishop of Massachusetts, who died recently in Danville, Kentucky.

      Next year the Friends group plans to honor the Lutheran churches, the Lutheran Fellowship and the Lutheran Children's Home which have organized volunteers for maintenance of the cemetery for many years.

      Tours of Pine Ridge and other cemeteries on trolley and bus that began a few years ago hit a peak last year when about 900 persons visited in one day during the Tall Ships Festival.

      Across the country cemeteries are increasingly becoming relics of the past, places of ritual and mystery, "cities of the dead" that offer inspiration and reflection on theimmortal past.

      One day in early January, before the heavy snows had blocked the road, about a dozen people visited Pine Ridge Cemetery late on a Sunday afternoon. They were parents accompanying their children who were studying the tombstones, making "rubbings" of the ancient, fading lettering.

      Strange, one might think, what with television, computers and the Internet. What would possess people to leave the warmth of their home to visit a cemetery on a cold winter's night. Perhaps something as simple as a need to stay in touch with the reality a cemetery and its headstones brings to academic study. A large percentage of humans are now cremated, their "cremains" being scattered in symbolic fashion in some remote and pertinent location. Therefore, nothing remains, not even a headstone in most cases, to remind descendants of their departed relative.

      Memorial Day is almost a sacred time for veterans and relatives of servicemen and women who have died. Veterans expend extraordinary effort to place flags on the graves of every veteran in every cemetery -- and there are 47 cemeteries in Bay County.

      Then designated veterans' organizations conduct services at each of the main cemeteries, some attending multiple events replete with bugler, color guard and flags and comments by commanders.

      Memorial Day was originally Decoration Day, first proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by Gen. John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. Flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

      After World War I the holiday honored Americans who died in any war. It is now celebrated in almost every state on the last Monday in May according to an Act of Congress. Several Southern states have separate days for honoring Confederate war dead, Jan. 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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