While many view Memorial Day as little more than the unofficial kickoff of the summer season and the end of a three-day holiday weekend, ceremonies held on Sunday afternoon in Mathews and Gloucester counties reflected on the true meaning of the day.

About 50 people attended the Mathews Memorial Day program hosted by American Legion Post 83; an hour later, a slightly larger crowd squeezed into and around the atrium of the Gloucester County Courthouse to take part in a ceremony conducted by American Legion Post 75.

In Mathews

Military historian John Quarstein, an author with 15 books to his credit, was the guest speaker at the Mathews Legion program. The director of the USS Monitor Center and Foundation chose another vessel as his topic—the RMS Lusitania, whose 1915 sinking by a German U-boat proved to be a major factor in the United States’ entry into World War I.

The ocean liner was off the Irish coast on May 7, 1915, at 15 knots with no escort and no warning of submari...