The Poppy Lady

[@Jskittinger7]

What a glorious tribute to the one who found a way to honor others. The illustrations are glorious!

[@LayneJohnsonStudio]

Thanks so much! 🙏

[@jushavinsumfun]

Stunning! Brings tears to my eyes.

[@genewalton8139]

Thanks for so beautifully honoring my Great-Great Aunt Moina with your video. I was born three years after she died.

[@LayneJohnsonStudio]

My pleasure. It's hard to find such unwavering dedication in people today.

[@cerealkiller495]

Wow! That's cool.

[@jessicawurdeman5484]

I am blessed and honoured to carry on her legacy thru my American Legion Auxiliary Bestowing me as our Post Poppy lady/ Historian. I was asked as the 2019/2020 State President to Represent The state Poppy Chair. I shall continue to teach ALL the young/old Your Aunts legacy. Bless you and your family.

[@egretparadise]

I’m so sorry... My dad died a few months ago... it’s been hard. Please pray for me. I’ll pray for you...

[@genewalton8139]

@@jessicawurdeman5484

[@johnsimpsonkirkpatrickhist1372]

A great book trailer and a moving tribute.

[@sneidigh]

Dramatic Book Trailer Layne! Your music gives the right mood for the trailer, too!

[@LayneJohnsonStudio]

Thanks Shrry!

[@maggie2cat]

Just beautiful!

[@lexistarr1]

what a beautiful video about remembrance day saying it's in 2 days...

[@VictoriaMassimoveem125]

This is awesome! Very well made!

[@bearbearmom4015]

Thank you.

[@ISSYBONN]

With respect, I think many overlook the tremendous efforts of the lesser known French lady 'Anna Guerin' who was in fact more responsible for first using the poppy as an emblem of remembrance. New research confirms this (2015).Whilst Moina Michaels work is indeed commendable, Anna Guerin's is work equally so. She however chose not to put herself forward in the same light as Moina Michael, thus mostly history records her a lesser known.Hopefully this will change.

[@thomasmichael3295]

That is disingenuous. Guerin declined to allow Moina to use her name in the Poppy Lady, and it's apparent from her furious response to Moina, and demand that her name be removed from Moina's book The Miracle Flower - a letter preserved at the University of Georgia - that humility had nothing to do with it. The University also preserves correspondence between the two in which Guerin refers to the poppy emblem as "your scheme" (1919), "our scheme" (1921), and, subsequently, "my scheme" (in 1925). The research to which you refer does, indeed, highlight Madame Guerin's contributions, which were mainly left out of The Miracle Flower because in 1941 Guerin, who had stopped promoting the flower in the late 1920's out of necessity because no one would order them from her anymore (see below), indicated she would be satisfied with nothing less than all the credit. The research to which you refer, however, is also very one-sided and, when I last reviewed it, left out several salient details about Madame Guerin. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) on their website to this day refers to their initial Buddy Poppy campaign as an "embarrassment" (their word) because of Guerin's failure to deliver poppies in the quantity ordered or at the promised delivery date. They refused to work with her again, and I argue that was the primary reason Guerin took her campaign to other countries. Yet the pattern was repeated almost every year: Guerin overpromised, and was unable to fulfill the orders in quantity promised or on time. Country after country, year after year, the local promoters dropped Guerin after one campaign, and began making their own poppies to sell, for the benefit of their own veterans. The New Zealand response is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of the old saw, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." When Guerin's poppies, predictably, failed to arrive on time, they just created a new holiday, ANZAC Day, in honor of the Australian and New Zealand military unit that served in the war, and sold the poppies then! They soon stopped doing business with Guerin, however. Guerin's promotion to these countries was indeed responsible for spreading the seeds of Moina's "Spirit Child" (as Moina Belle Michael called the Remembrance Poppy), but at least part of the reason she kept moving her project to a new country almost every year is that country after country stopped dealing with her after her continual failure to fulfill orders correctly. Frustrated, and running out of countries, Guerin stopped. But Moina Belle Michael spent her entire last quarter century tirelessly promoting poppies and poppy sales, and donated every cent she could raise, and every personal dollar she could spare, to veterans. Guerin does, indeed, deserve a lot more credit than she has gotten. And I everything I've seen about her so far indicates that her heart was in the right place. But one of the main reasons she was forgotten was her foolish insistence that she not be mentioned unless she got all the credit, and an honest look at her successes also requires a similarly honest look at her failures.

[@yitringor7219]

We saw this video in school today

[@LayneJohnsonStudio]

Thank you! Layne

[@rustyrobtics3927]

im in my social studies class watching this with here if you see this teacher then i said hi

[@LayneJohnsonStudio]

Awesome! Hi!

[@laynejo]

Thanks!

[@toniahardtke2944]

Can I use this video for a lesson in my classroom on Veteran's Day this fall 2017? This is wonderful tribute and honor, but I may not have time to read the book in its entirety due to time constraints of my 30 minute class sessions.

[@francyslagunes6694]

you have to read it by your self

[@VictoriaMassimoveem125]

By the way...what's the song!? I'd love to learn it on piano :)

[@younesb64]

C'était CLAQUE AU SOL