section_path: Poppies
section_name: Poppies
paragraph_text: Poppies
  
  In 1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the poem " In Flanders Fields ". Its opening lines refer to the fields of poppies that grew among the soldiers' graves in Flanders. Inspired by the poem, YWCA worker Moina Michael attended a YWCA Overseas War Secretaries' conference three years later wearing a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed over two dozen more to others present. The National American Legion adopted the poppy as its official symbol of remembrance in 1920.
  
  In 1915, following the Second Battle of Ypres, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a physician with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote the poem " In Flanders Fields ". Its opening lines refer to the fields of poppies that grew among the soldiers' graves in Flanders. Inspired by the poem, YWCA worker Moina Michael attended a YWCA Overseas War Secretaries' conference three years later wearing a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed over two dozen more to others present. The National American Legion adopted the poppy as its official symbol of remembrance in 1920.