The paper flowers will be available for donations at Buehler's and Hawkins supermarkets in Orrville this Friday and Saturday, as well as other locations throughout Wayne and Holmes counties. But it's rehabilitation for them. The poppies are not sold, they are distributed, and passersby contribute whatever they choose.
All funds go to disabled veterans.
The Messenger family has seen its share of wartime duty. Another uncle, Colin Messenger, died in the Korean War. Pat's father, Howard Parsons Sr., served in World War II and moved to the Creston area from West Virginia after the war. According to information from the American Legion Auxiliary, the four-petaled crepe paper poppy became the organization's official memorial flower in 1923. Col. John McCrae, an officer in several battles around Flanders in France, noted the vast number of poppies around a cemetery in which numerous World War I soldiers were buried.