The sale of red poppies on Memorial Day began almost immediately after the end of World War I, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields” by Lt. Col. John McCrae, a surgeon in the Canadian army. The poem was a reminder of the valor of the men and women who died in France in the “war to end all wars.”
The poem reads in part:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on r...