Graveyard Cleaning and Decoration Day
Graveyard Cleaning and Decoration Day
Graveyard Cleaning Day is often held in July, but it may be observed any time from late May until early September. There usually isn't any connection to official Memorial Day celebrations; the date is a matter of local choice and convenience. In New Orleans, for example, it is customary to whitewash the tombs on All Saints' Day. All of these observations, however, harken back to the ancient Roman festival known as the Parentalia, an uncharacteristically somber occasion on which people decorated the graves of the deceased with flowers and left food in the cemeteries to sustain the spirits of the dead.
FolkAmerHol-1999, p. 326