100 Years - Veterans Day - November 11, 1918 - 2018

            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.