![]() Moina searched the shops that day and found one large and 24 small artificial, red, silk poppies. ![]() Touched by the gesture, she told them she would buy 25 red poppies with the money. On behalf of the delegates, they asked her to accept a check for $10 in appreciation of her efforts to brighten up the headquarters with flowers. On that same Saturday morning in November 1918, three men from the Twenty-Fifth Conference of the YMCA Overseas Secretaries appeared at Moina’s desk. She felt as though she was actually being called by the voices which had been silenced by death. In Moina’s book, The Miracle Flower, she described the experience as deeply spiritual. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields.’” ![]() “The last verse transfixed me - ‘To you from failing hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high. “I read the poem, which I had read many times previously, and studied the graphic picturization,” she said. Moina’s own words from her memoir demonstrate the effect this poem on her. However, the president of the overseas YMCA secretaries gave her a job at the training headquarters in New York at Columbia, where she worked until January 1919. She was barred from overseas service because of her age - she was 49. After completing her training, Moina’s hopes of being sent abroad fell short. Moina had volunteered for the overseas YMCA war workers at Columbia University in New York, her alma mater. Moina turned to a dog-eared page containing McCrae’s poem. This was just two days before the armistice was signed, ending the war. A young woman from Georgia, Moina Michael, was given a copy of that magazine on Saturday morning, Nov. By late 1918, the poem had been published in many more publications, including Ladies’ Home Journal. The poem was first published in Punch magazine during the war and originally titled We Shall Not Sleep. McCrae wrote to his mother a sentiment likely shared by every soldier going his way: “I am really rather afraid, but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience.” Days ahead of his departure for the Great War, Dr. McCrae, a surgeon, died of pneumonia in January 1918 while commanding the Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne, France. McCrae wrote the poem after witnessing the death, and later presiding over the funeral, of a friend. John Alexander McCrae while serving as a physician in the Canadian army during World War I. These lines are familiar to many and are the beginning of a poem written by Lt. Legionnaire provides in-depth history on famed Georgia legend
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