Sue Landon Vaughan (October 12, 1835 – July 22, 1911) was an American artist and writer best known for falsely claiming to have originated the Memorial Day holiday.

[2] Briefly, the story goes that Vaughan (Adams, at the time) was at a friend’s home north of Jackson, Mississippi on the night of April 25, 1865.

Vaughan grabs a pencil and scrap of paper to write a plea to the "daughters of the Southland" to garland the graves of the dead soldiers the next day.

[3] In their book, The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America, Bellware and Gardiner take issue with Vaughan’s claim.

There is no contemporaneous evidence of her actions, despite claiming that she wrote her appeal in the Mississippian newspaper and no record of any witnesses to corroborate her story.