VFW Post 3278 and its auxiliaries will host a Memorial Day Observance on Monday, May 30th at Eastlawn Memorial Park in Early.  The service will take place at 9:00 a.m. and the public is invited to attend.

“This observance is a time for our nation to come together to remember and honor those Americans who died while defending and securing our Nation’s freedom,” organizers state.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic and was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971).