Show You Remember with a Red Poppy

The Red Field Poppy has become the symbol of remembrance around the world and to this day. People wear Field Poppies on their lapels, especially in England and throughout the Commonwealth, on Remembrance Day, November 11, and the week before and after. In the U.S. Poppies are worn on Veteran's Day, November 11, and Memorial Day, May 25.

Unfortunately, most people wear cheap plastic flowers that have no aesthetic value but are simply worn as a symbol of remembrance. Hence, Fort Belvedere has created high-quality Remembrance Poppies that look like real Poppies from Flanders Field.

How the Poppy Came to Represent Remembrance

How did the poppy become the symbol of remembrance and people suffering from the aftermath of wars? Flanders in Belgium was a battlefield during WWI and when the Canadian soldier John McCrae wrote a poem following the death of a friend in May 1915, the red Flanders poppies inspired him to these lines:

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing gly
Scarce heard amid the guns below."

It took until November 9th, 1918, just two days before Armistice was declared, for the American Moina Michael to help popuarlize the concept of red poppies for remembrance. That day, she read this "In Flanders Field Poppy" poem in a magazine and felt so deeply touched that she made a pledge to always wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields as a sign of remembrance. Since she was on duty at the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries' headquarters in New York, she used some poppies for decoration.