How have we observed Memorial Day? With parades, and ceremonies, and sometimes by shoveling snow

Memorial Day activities around the La Crosse area generally include parades, and ceremonies in local parks and cemeteries, along with many family picnics and cookouts.

The traditions for the day include solemn ceremonies at sites including Oak Grove Cemetery. In 1913, members of the Grand Army of the Republic, veterans of the Civil War from 50 years earlier, gathered at Oak Grove to dedicate the Soldier’s Monument there. A La Crosse Tribune story about that event speculated that the 1913 parade would probably be the last one in the city to primarily feature Civil War vets.

But in some years, the holiday stands out for different reasons, such as an unusual May blizzard.

School was ending in the last week of May, 1947 when a very late-season storm developed in the Rockies, and made its way as far east as Michigan. On May 29th, the day before Memorial Day, La Crosse got 3 inches of snow, but 9 to 10 inches fell at Viroqua and Gays Mills. Central High School in La Crosse held its traditional program for the holiday for the 25th time.

In 1971, a new Monday holiday schedule took effect, when Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day all began to be celebrated on Mondays, to provide for more long holiday weekends.

The following year, Prairie du Chien began holding a Fire Engine Muster and parade over Memorial Day weekend. The ’72 event attracted Charles Kuralt from CBS News. Originally, the muster included a fire engine race on area roads, but a crash during the 1973 race left one person badly injured, and they stopped doing the races.

In 1990, UW-La Crosse was preparing to host the WIAA State High School track meet for the first time, on the weekend after Memorial Day. La Crosse was expecting 1700 athletes and thousands of spectators at Memorial Field. And the state meet has been in La Crosse ever since it arrived in 1990, yesterday in La Crosse.