Memorial Day Commemorated Here in Honolulu.

This past Saturday, Memorial Day was celebrated here in Honolulu, and likely so too all over the countryside, with the placing of flowers upon graves.

In many of the cemeteries of this town it was very clear to see that those with graves there got together to decorate them according to their artistic knowledge, and they were truly beautiful to see.

The day was commemorated with a military parade to the uplands of Maʻemaʻe Cemetery, where servicemen lie; and it was for them that the memorial was held, along with a speech given as well as a gun salute for those who died.

At half past nine on that Saturday morning the American soldiers and the Hawaiʻi national guards, as well as the students of Kamehameha Boys’ School, the children of Mills School, the students of the Boys’ School of Honolulu, the Hawaiian Band, the mounted police, and high-ranking government officials of the Territory gathered together.

Before it was time for the parade to start, the roads were filled with spectators, and when it reached ten o’clock, that was the hour that the parade was to proceed from the Executive Building [ʻIolani Palace] until King Street, then up that street until Alakea Street, then up that street until reaching Vineyard Street, turning down until Nuʻuanu Street, and then straight up for Maʻemaʻe Cemetery.

The parade went on for half an hour, reaching the cemetery; each person was arranged in the place set aside for them. Then the memorial service was begun with the singing of a hymn by Madame Alapai.

After the prayer of gratitude to God, Abraham Lincoln’s speech was read by Miss Mabel Wilcox, that speech Abraham Lincoln gave fifty-one years ago upon the field of Gettysburg, where blood of the soldiers was spilt; it was their graves which were decorated with flowers by the survivors of that time.

When the reading of that speech came to an end, Judge Stewart delivered the oration, and after that, the list of names was read out of the soldiers who are buried at Maʻemaʻe Cemetery, and finally volleys were fired, then everyone went on their own way.

(Kuokoa, 6/5/1914, p. 3)