Mom was 7 years
old when World War I, or as she called it, the Great War, ended. An armistice
was scheduled for the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month in 1918.
The boys in
her Chicago public school made paper hats so they could represent soldiers. The
girls took white strips of cloth from an old bed sheet and used tincture of iodine
to draw a red cross on each one. When they tied the cloth across their
foreheads they looked like nurses.
All the
children paraded around the flagpole in the playground that morning of November
11, 1918.
That's how
that first armistice was celebrated by ordinary people. Armistice Day was
celebrated from 1919 to 1954, when the name changed to Veterans Day.
