When CNC's Class of 1972 decided its gift to the College would be the first CNC flag, classmate Kenneth Michael Flick was chosen to design it--a logical decision, since Ken had previously designed both the College's four-year college seal and the first four-year class ring, worn proudly by members of the first baccalaureate class (1971).  The photo above, taken by Sharon Flick, shows Ken and Baxter Vendrick, Senior Director of Alumni Engagement, holding a picture of the seal Ken designed, which is also on the cover of our Memories of Christopher Newport College book. More details about the  seal and the ring are in another website article to be updated and republished very soon.

Until recently, the only known photograph of the 1972 CNC flag (shown right) was that taken during Commencement 1972 and published on page 43 of the 1972 Trident yearbook. The flag is hanging from the outdoor stage in front of Dr. Ruth Mulliken, the commencement speaker. The quality of that photograph is poor. Fortunately,  in the same year, the Daily Press took the picture shown below, which was included in its photo gallery Look Back: Christopher Newport College. It shows SGA President Steve Franklin (L) and Ken Flick (R) presenting the flag to Dean of Students William (Bill) Polis.

The focal point of the flag was the College's seal, minus the image of Captain Christopher Newport holding the wheel with his left hand and right hook. In designing the flag Ken added instead, behind the seal,  a ship's anchor, colored silver or gray.  The colors of the seal were these: The ship's wheel was brown; CNC's name was white. In the center, the William and Mary Wren Building seal (top left) was on a field of light blue; the original CNC seal (top right), created when CNC was a two-year branch of William and Mary, was on a field of navy blue; and the three ships (bottom), representing the arrival of the Jamestown colonists, were on a sea blue field with a green horizon

The remainder of the flag was royal blue, with fringes on three sides that were supposed to be silver, but turned out to be white. The fourth side was made to accommodate a flag pole. In white also were the founding year 1960 in the top corners (19 on the left and 60 on the right) and the year 1971 in the bottom corners (19 left, 71 right), recognizing the year CNC became a four-year degree granting institution.  The flag was made of nylon, rectangular, and measured 4' x 6'. It looks square and much smaller in the Daily Press picture because the photographer had the men fold back the left and right sides to fit his artistic needs. That is why the corner numbers mentioned above are not visible in that picture.

Ken does not remember who made the flag and how much it cost, because once his design was chosen, he thinks the project was turned over to either the SGA or the Dean of Students, Mr. Polis. He also does not know what became of the flag after Commencement 1972. He remembers that the flag was not present at Commencement 1973, which puzzled him, and wonders if someone might have stolen it or hidden it as a prank.

  We need to find this first CNC flag (if it still exists) so that it can be professionally preserved and displayed in Klich Alumni House.  It is an important piece of CNC's early history. I have contacted Dr. Sean Heuvel, CNU's Director of Graduate Recruitment and Admission, who is also chairman  of the University's 1961 Historical Preservation Club, to get his help in this search. I am also a member of the 1961 Club. I am asking all of you First Decaders and Friends of the First Decaders to join us also in this search for the first flag. Contact me (cncmemories61_71@yahoo.com) or Dave Spriggs (dave.spriggs@ cox.net) if you have any information that might be of help. Thank you.

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The Memorial Day Poppy:
A Tradition Born from a Poem

Second Revised Version, 2023.
by A. Jane Chambers

Shown above, next to his most famous poem, is Lt. Colonel John McCrae (1872 - 1918), a Canadian poet, soldier, and physician. At age 41, as World War I began, he volunteered to join a Canadian fighting unit as a gunner and medical officer. He had previously fought as a volunteer in the  Second Boer War (1899-1902) and considered military service his major duty. 

While McCrae's unit was fighting in the Flanders region of Belgium, the German army attacked the French positions north of the Canadians with chlorine gas on April 22, 1915, launching one of the first chemical attacks in the history of war. Luckily, the Germans were unable to break through the Canadian line although fighting for over two weeks in a battle McCrae described in a letter to his mother as "a nightmare" during which "all that time ... gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds....And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way" (Wikipedia).

McCrea's close friend Lt. Alexis Helmer (photo above) was killed on May 2 during this fierce battle. There was no chaplain available, so McCrae performed the burial service himself. He noticed with surprise that red poppies were growing quickly around the graves of his dead comrades.  As Sarah Pruitt wrote in her essay "The Poppy and the Poet," "the brutal clashes between Allied and Axis soldiers tore up fields and forests ..., "tearing up trees and plants and wreaking havoc on the soil beneath. But in the warm early spring of 1915, bright red flowers began peeking through the battle-scarred land: Papaver rhoeas, known variously as the Flanders poppy, corn poppy, red poppy and corn rose...classified as a weed" (www.history.com).

The above photo showing poppies growing atop a French trench is the only known color picture that shows poppies on a World War 1 battlefield.  Taken in 1915 by an official French war photographer, this photo was published in 2009 in Flanders Fields Music courtesy of www.greatwar.nl.

he sight of the blood-red poppies among the recent graves inspired McCrea to write "In Flanders Fields" the very next day (May 3, 1915). Various friends urged him to publish it, and in late 1915 it was published in the English magazine Punch. The poem was often used at countless memorial ceremonies, and became one of the most famous works of art to emerge from the Great War. Its fame had spread far and wide by the time McCrae himself died, from pneumonia and meningitis, in January 1918 (Wikipedia).

An American woman, Moina Michael  (1869 - 1944)  initiated the practice of wearing red poppies to remember the deceased military. She read “In Flanders Fields” in the Ladies’ Home Journal  two days before the armistice. A professor at the University of Georgia when WWI  began, she had taken a leave of absence to volunteer at the New York headquarters of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), which trained and sponsored workers overseas. Inspired by McCrae’s verses, Michael wrote her own poem in response (copy below). 

As a remembrance of the Allied solders' sacrifices in the Great War, Professor Michael vowed to always wear a red poppy. Finding a batch of red fabric blooms at a department store, she kept some for herself and gave others to her colleagues. After the war ended (1918), she returned to the university town of Athens, GA, and began making and selling red silk poppies to raise money to support returning American veterans.  In the summer of 1920, she managed to get Georgia’s branch of the American Legion to adopt the poppy as its symbol. Soon after that, the National American Legion voted to use the poppy as the official U.S. national emblem of remembrance when its members convened in Cleveland in September, 1920 (Sarah Pruitt, in www.history.com).

The red poppy quickly became a major symbol of both our Memorial Day (celebrated the last Monday of May) and also Remembrance Day (celebrated November 11) in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand.  Moina Michael became known worldwide as "The Poppy Lady." In 1948, four years after her death, the U.S. Postal Service issued the above postcard and stamp honoring her, and in 1958 the state of Georgia placed an historical marker near her birthplace.

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Published first May 25, 2018.

Revised  & republished May 15, 2020.

Second revised version published May 24, 2023. 

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Admiral William (Bill) Kelly and Wife, Angie:

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We welcome your FEEDBACK. Send to
cncmemories61_71@yahoo.com
or dave.spriggs@cox.net.
Published March 23, 2023.

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Our Latin Calendar: May and June

by A. Jane Chambers

Revised May 2023

MAY

This month honors two goddesses named Maia. The  Greek goddess Maia, whose  name means "midwife," was  revered as a nurturer and protector of mothers. The Romans identified her with their fertility goddess Maia, to whom the month of May was dedicated, and closely associated her with their god of fire and heat, Vulcan, so she represented the growth which occurs in later spring as the earth becomes warmer. On May 1st, Vulcan's priests sacrificed a pregnant pig to Maia to honor fertility in all living beings. The painting of Vulcan and Maia (ca. 1585) by Bartholomeus Spranger is from Wikipedia.

JUNE

The month of June is named after the chief Roman goddess Juno, wife of the major Roman god Jupiter.  Juno, Jupiter, and  Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, were the equivalent of (in order) the Greek deities Hera, Zeus, and Athena. As Rome's triad of major deities, they were most often worshipped and honored with temples. Two of Juno's major roles were being the warlike protector of the Roman state (statues such as the one here, in the Vatican, show her holding a spear and a shield) and being the nurturing protector of women during pregnancy and childbirth. Juno's children with Jupiter included war deities Mars (male) and Bellona (female) and the fire god Vulcan, who represented fire's dual nature as destroyer and creator (as in the spring time warming of the earth for crops).

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Humor

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