Will you remember me?

. . . so when I'm dead and gone
will you still sing my song?
will you remember me?

will you remember me?
will you remember me?
that's what I'm talkin about
when my life runs out
will you remember me?

. . . but before I go
I just wanna know
if you'll remember me?

will you remember me?
will you remember me?
that's what I'm talkin about
when my life runs out
will you remember me?

David Allan Coe
Live at Billy Bob's Texas

For as long as this place remains

You see,
I believe that when we leave a place,
part of it goes with us
and part of us remains.

Go anywhere in the station,
when it is quiet,
and just listen.

After a while,
you will hear the echoes
of all our conversations.

Every thought
and word
we've exchanged.

Long after we're gone,
our voices
will linger in these walls
for as long as this place remains.

But I will admit
that the part of me that is going
will very much miss
the part of you that is staying.

Ambassador G-Kar, Babylon 5

Sentimental Sunday :: Remembering the Grandmas

Remembering the Grandmas on Mother's Day . . .




I hear the voices of my grandmas
Calling out from a distant past
"Please do not let us be forgot.
Record our stories that we may last."


Tell the children of our wanderings
Let the kinfolk hear the tales
How we braved the new horizons
How we blazed the olden trails.


How we buried too many babies
How we struggled to keep them fed
How we caressed the hands of our loved ones
As they lay dying on their beds.


How we endured many a hardship
With an eye to the future goal
To create a more promising future
And to keep our family whole.


They were as different from each other
As the scraps in a crazy quilt
Yet once the pieces were sewn together
Another generation they had built


I can sense them calling out to me
From the gloaming of my past
"Please do not let us be forgot.
Record our stories that we may last."

The above family poem was composed by me back in 2009 in response to a challenge posted at Genea-Musings: Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Poetry and Genealogy . . . and the Wordle (name cloud) was created at wordle.net . . .

Huckleberries and Hornets

Every child should have . . . 

 

mud pies, 

grasshoppers, 

water bugs, 

tadpoles, 

frogs, 

mud turtles, 

elderberries, 

wild strawberries, 

acorns, 

chestnuts, 

trees to climb. 

Brooks to wade, 

water lilies, 

woodchucks, 

bats, 

bees, 

butterflies, 

various animals to pet, 

hayfields, 

pine-cones, 

rocks to roll, 

sand, 

snakes, 

huckleberries and hornets; 

and any child 

who has been deprived of these 

has been deprived 

of the best part of education.

 

Luther Burbank*
07 March 1849 – 11 April 1926

*This quote is posted in memory of Luther Burbank who is a 5th cousin six times removed to the Keeper of this blog. He died 90 years ago today.

I shall use my time

I would rather
be ashes than dust!

I would rather
that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze

than it should be stifled by dry-rot.

I would rather
be a superb meteor,

every atom of me
in magnificent glow,

than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live,

not to exist.

I shall not waste my days
trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.


The above is "said" to be
Jack London's 'Credo'

Good-night, good-night

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;
Warm southern wind, blow softly here;
Green sod above, lie light, lie light-
Good-night, dear heart, good-night, good-night.

These lines were adapted from a poem by Robert Richardson . . . the original can be found in a little book published in 1893 . . . Willow and Wattle . . .


On this date in our extended collateral family history . . . the 19th day of March . . . in the year 1872 . . . Olivea Susan "Susy" Clemens was born in Elmira, New York . . . 



Susy was a daughter of Samuel Clemens . . . who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain . . . and this Susy is a 4th cousin once removed to Josephine Wingfield Henry nee Davis (1842-1899) . . . who is a 2nd great-grandma to the Keeper of this family history blog . . .


According to a letter written by Miss Daisy Warner, Susy Clemens enjoyed strawberries and ice cream and ladyfingers at her 15th birthday party on the 19th of March in 1887 . . . following Susy's death at the age of 24, her father had the words at the top of this page engraved on her tombstone . . .

When we meet again

Death is nothing at all.

It does not count.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.

I am I, and you are you,

and the old life that we lived so fondly together

is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other,

that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.

Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without an effort,

without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was.

There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you,

for an interval,

somewhere very near,

just round the corner.

All is well.

Nothing is hurt;

nothing is lost.

One brief moment

and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh

at the trouble of parting

when we meet again!

Henry Scott Holland

27 January 1847 ~ 17 March 1918

Historians ought to be . . .

Historians ought to be precise, faithful, and unprejudiced; and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should make them swerve from the way of truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instruction to the present, and monitor to the future. - Cervantes.

Ink froze.

The coldest day that I remember recording, clear and bright, but very high wind, blowing the snow. Ink froze. 

Thoreau's Journal

23-Jan-1857

Restoring Ethics to Genealogy

To be a Responsible Genealogist is to be honorable, fair, and truthful,  

to show respect for your ancestors by presenting a true and complete picture of their existence,  

to be fair to your fellow genealogists by acknowledging their contributions to your research,  

and to be relentless in your pursuit of factual data and in the search for the truth.  

Barbara A. Brown