Memorial Day 2025

Uncommonly cool and pleasant weather has allowed peonies to persist , and they are still blooming today. When we moved north to Pike County, Memorial Day was a day for decorating graves, not just those of service members lost in battle. Peonies were the favored flower, though already fake flowers were taking over. But it was in Pike County that I first heard the flower called a pee-OH-nee, and I think of that pronunciation whenever I look at PEE-ah-nees, as I pronounce them.

My maternal grandmother, Gertrude Shea Quetsch, was by all accounts, quite a dynamic woman. I don’t remember her, but I have had her painting of peonies on my wall since I turned 25, when my mother gave it to me.

But today is really a day to remember lives that were given up for a cause. My family has been incredibly lucky to have escaped that sacrifice. It cannot be said enough that luck should not be underestimated in our journeys through this life.

In the twentieth century- World War I – three Barry boys served with distinction and decorations, surviving that hellish “war to end all wars”. My grandfather, Jim, wrote about his years in the trenches. His brother, Great Uncle Gerard, lost a leg, but survived. Alas, his luck ran out in Cork, where he was inadvertently shot and killed by “friendly fire” from a sentry in 1921. Great Uncle John, who introduced me to the famous Elsie Morgan, a rare woman huntsman in Ireland in 1971, was seriously wounded during the War, but recovered to ride to hounds and lived to the age of 90.

In World War II, three more Barry boys served the Crown with distinction and all came home alive. My father, Brian, was at D-Day aboard HMS Orion, Uncle Pete was in Naval Intelligence at Scapa Flow, and Uncle Mike was a paratrooper, first man to land at Arnhem, a “bridge too far”, where he was wounded and captured by the Germans. He returned emaciated but alive at the end of the war, and went on to follow in his father’s footsteps as a beloved country doctor.

On my American, maternal, side, the Steel industry kept grandfather, Leonard Quetsch out of military service. Later, his five sons all served, but did not see action during the Korean War. My mother’s brother, Uncle Jack, went on to become Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States.

Harry, of course, served in the U.S. Navy in Viet Nam and survived. He continues to work with service members who were wounded in subsequent wars, and he never discounts his luck. He has been the luckiest thing that ever happened to me!

Bless all who grieve losses today, and be grateful every day for the people who have kept us safe, at the cost of their own lives.

Be well, be safe, be lucky, and be grateful. Slava Ukraini! Peace…