[NLA] Celebrating Mother's and Memorial Days

[Thomas Sticht]

Research Note 5/11/02

A Celebration From Mother’s Day to Memorial Day

Bridged by Love and Literacy

Thomas G. Sticht
International Consultant in Adult Education 

"MARCHING STILL
by Minna Irving
(1872 - ?)

She is old, and bent, and wrinkled,
   In her rocker in the sun,
And the thick, gray, woolen stocking
   That she knits is never done.
She will ask the news of battle
   If you pass her when you will,
For to her the troops are marching,
   Marching still.

Seven tall sons about her growing
   Cheered the widowed mother's soul;
One by one they kissed and left her
   When the drums began to roll.
They are buried in the trenches,
   They are bleaching on the hill;
But to her the boys are marching,
   Marching still.

She was knitting in the corner
   When the fatal news was read,
How the last and youngest perished,--
   And the letter, ending, said:
"I am writing on my knapsack
   By the road with borrowed quill,
For the Union army's marching,
   Marching still."

Reason sank and died within her
   Like a flame for want of air;
So she knits the woolen stockings
   For the soldier lads to wear,
Waiting till the war is ended
   For her sons to cross the sill;
For she thinks they all are marching,
   Marching still."

And still they march, with more daughters joining sons at war than ever
in America’s past. From the Civil War, which stimulated Minna Irving’s
soulful poem, through the World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam, the
Gulf War and the present War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and other
places, mothers have watched their mailboxes for letters from their
adult children in harms way in far off places. That is one of the
features shared by love and literacy
both bring caring people together
across time, land and sea. 

In the Civil War, and the World Wars, for some Moms, the letters they
received were the first ever written by their sons. Because in these
wars, many of those called to serve were totally or nearly totally
illiterate. In World War I, the Camp Reader for American Soldiers,
written in 1918 by J. Duncan Spaeth, a Professor of English at Princeton
University, the love of sons for their mothers, and the value of
literacy for transcending time and space is shown by the fact that
Lesson 2 in the Camp Reader is about writing home to mother. It reads:
1. I can write.
2. I can write my name.
3. I can write your name.
4. I can write a letter.
5. I will write home.
6. I will write to my mother.
7. I will write a letter home. 

This year, Mother's Day is celebrated on May 12 and sons and daughters
honor their mothers. And then, just two weeks later, Memorial Day is
observed, and mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and others will honor
the sons and daughters who have given their lives to preserve our
families, freedom and democracy.

As adult educators, we need to also honor those who worked, often under
great duress, to help give soldiers and sailors the literacy skills they
needed to stay in touch with their families and other loved ones. 

In Lesson 59 of the Camp Reader of World War I, the author wrote a poem
the last few lines of which reads:
"Little rills of dusty sweat
Trickle down their faces wet,
Down their faces stern and set
Trickle slowly as they tramp,
Soldiers hiking back to camp.
As they march the road along
Some one breaks into a song:
"There’s a long, long trail awinding
Into the land of my dreams." "

And still they march

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