Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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When we moved from Marysville to Columbus in 2010, we purchased a new
American flag. We bought it at the “Flag Lady” store on North High Street. We fly it on special days, like Memorial Day and the 4th of July. We also occasionally fly it at other times, maybe for a week or two. It’s just nice to see it there mounted on the front of our house.
Then a few years ago while we were flying the flag, we had one of those unexpected summer storms. It poured down rain and the winds were ferocious. The storm didn’t last long, but it did quite a bit of damage in our neighborhood.
Those strong winds ripped that flag right out of its holder and blew it the length of our driveway, into a puddle of water. When we retrieved it, we spread it out in the garage to dry so we could later send it to the cleaners.
All this happened sometime in mid June, only a day or so before Flag Day. So it looked like we would have a “flagless” Flag Day. But then I remembered a small cedar box on a shelf in our basement. It contained the old flag my grandmother, Hettie Tracy, flew in our yard on West Fifth Street when I was a little kid in the 1930s.
We retrieved the cedar box, and as I opened it, I was flooded with memories of my grandmother flying it. That old flag looked just like our new flag, except it only had 48 stars instead of 50.
Hettie not only flew that it on all the special holidays, she also flew it every October 2. You see, that was the day her father, William Hudson, passed away. He was a Union soldier during the Civil War, and his infantry unit defended the bridges that led into Washington D.C. Hettie was proud of that, and she flew the flag in his memory. I liked the thought of that, so we added October 2 to our own flag flying calendar.
We got our soiled flag back from the cleaners in a few days, and we use it on all our flag-flying days except one. On October 2, we switch to that old flag of Hettie’s, the one with 48 stars. I think it’s a nice way to remember both my grandmother and my great-grandfather.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com