During
World War II, the mothers of men who were killed in
combat received Gold Stars as a small token of our nation's appreciation
of their loss.
The impetus for such an action stems from this letter written by Abraham Lincoln
to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a Boston widow who lost her sons during the Civil War:
"I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which
should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming,
but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be
found in the thanks of the Republic that they died to save.
"I pray that the Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your
bereavement, and leave you only the cherished
memory of the loved
and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a
sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."
—Abraham Lincoln
When I was a small boy, not so very long after the war, house upon house in my
neighborhood displayed Gold Stars in their windows. I always wondered why they
were there, but the one time I asked my mother, who had lived on the street all
her life, she held me tight and started to cry.
I was treated with great kindness, growing up, by the
quiet women who tended those stars, dusting them, keeping them turned proudly
towards the sun.
It's taken me a very long time to realize why.