Moina Michael

She was the eldest daughter and second of the seven children of John Marion Michael, a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War, and Alice Sherwood Wise.

She taught at the Lucy Cobb Institute and State Normal School, both located in Athens, Georgia.

She took a leave of absence from her work and volunteered to assist in the New York-based training headquarters for overseas YWCA workers.

Realizing the need to provide financial and occupational support for these servicemen, she pursued the idea of selling silk poppies as a means of raising funds to assist disabled veterans.

She retired from the University of Georgia in 1934, and published an autobiography in 1941, The Miracle Flower: The Story of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy.