our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. –John McCrae Though various legends have developed as to the inspiration for the poem, the most commonly held belief is that McCrae wrote "In Flanders Fields" on May 3, 1915, the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres. The poem was written as he sat upon the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm, just north of Ypres. The poppy, which was a central feature of the poem, grew in great numbers in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders. An article by Veteran's Administration Canada provides this account:The day before he wrote his famous poem, one of McCrae's closest friends was killed in the fighting and buried in a makeshift grave with a simple wooden cross. Wild poppies were already beginning to bloom between the crosses marking the many graves. The Canadian government has placed a memorial to John McCrae that features "In Flanders Fields" at the site of the dressing station which sits beside the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Essex Farm Cemetery. The Belgian government has named this site the "John McCrae Memorial Site". Legacy The Canadian Medical Association awards the John McCrae Memorial Medal to a health services member of the Canadian Armed Forces for exemplary service. McCrae was designated a Person of National Historic Significance in 1946. McCrae was the great-uncle of former Alberta Member of Parliament (MP) David Kilgour and of Kilgour's sister Geills Turner, who married former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner. Marie Christie Geills Kilgour (née McCrae) was the sister of John McCrae. In 1918, Lieut. John Philip Sousa wrote the music to "In Flanders Fields, the poppies grow" words by Lieut.-Col John McCrae. The Cloth Hall of the city of Ypres in Belgium has a permanent war museum called the "In Flanders Fields Museum", named after the poem. There are also a photograph and a short biographical memorial to McCrae in the St George Memorial Church in Ypres. In May 2007, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the writing of his best-known poem with a two-day literary