Your Affectionate Father

Dear Children:

Being sensible the foregoing genealogy neither is or can be of any public benefit, it cannot be worthy of public notice. I therefore have no other meaning than to hand it down to you, to the end that you and your descendants may (if you or any of them have or may have the curiosity) look back to the first of the family... from whom you derived your nativity, and may continue it along to many generations, if you or any of them think proper to do it; with that view (and no other) it is presented to you by your

Affectionate Father

(letter written by Gen. Joseph Frye- 19 Mar. 1783)

Old Cemetery on the Hill

On this date . . . the 15th day of November . . . in the year 1877 . . . in San Patricio County, Texas . . . occurs the death of Susanna O'Docharty, who was tall and slender with a shock of red hair . . . this Susanna, along with many of her family members, were laid to rest in the Old Cemetery on the Hill . . . it has been said of her that she accurately predicted her own death . . . the following is a portion of what is referred to as her epitaph . . . it is from a collection of stories handed down through generations by oral tradition . . .

And now I lie with them upon this hill
Mingling with Texas earth as seasons come and go.
Chilling northers bend grasses almost to the ground;
Low-hung clouds are misty blankets
Dropping days of rain upon the earth.

Then wild flowers make sweet the air in spring;
At dawn birds chirp and trill as if to wake us,
But we lie immutable, insensible to summer heat and winter cold . . .
While we lie here a segment of a forgotten colony.




Here I lie beside my own --
A hundred springs have come and gone
Since first I lay upon this lonely hill. . . .

I hope you can hear the laughter

 I hope death

is like being carried to your bedroom

when you were a child

and fell asleep on the couch

during a family party.

I hope you can hear the laughter

from the next room.

~~~~~

Please leave a comment if you know who wrote this. The earliest post I found was in 2022, but with no attribution.

Labours of the Antiquary

There is an exquisite pleasure in reviving the memory of past days from the dust scattered over it by time, of which none but those engaged in the pursuit can have an idea of.

Imagination loves to look back upon former ages, and fill up the remaining outline, which seems so dull to the incurious, with colors more vivid even than they ever possessed in reality.

So memory in old age throws a fairy gleam over the enjoyments of youth, more enchanting than the light in which they appeared when present.

These are the feelings which actuate the labours of the antiquary of true taste ; reviving the features of the dead, and the manners and acts of ages that are gone.

Found in Record of the Bartholomew family
By George Wells Bartholomew · 1885

 

1930 :: Memories of Mother

The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger

(Rockdale, Tex.)

Vol. 58, No. 12, Ed. 1

Thursday, May 8, 1930 Page: 7 of 8

 

The Family Tree

Photo by benotforgot

The late novelist Michael Crichton is reported to have said, “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”

Over the Hill

The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger (Rockdale, Tex.)

Vol. 53, No. 8, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 16, 1925

 

 

A Radiant Dawn is Breaking

When, on my eve of life,
a radiant dawn is breaking
and whispering winds
from Heaven's bright plains
are blown,

 

I hear,
from out the sunrise,
voices calling
my feet to brighter paths,
untried,
unknown.

E.E.L.

 Emily Emerson Lantz 

1862 ~ 1931

In memory of Betty and Iola and Dorris

Psalm 102:18

Let this be written

for a future generation . . .

Alex Haley is often quoted as having said that when an old person dies, it is like a small library burning. 

The difference is, most libraries only have books for which there are duplicates in many other libraries. 


But when an old person dies, it is a tragic loss of the many and varied pages and chapters of the assorted books of that person's unique life . . . it is left to us, the living, to remember and record and memorialize their stories . . .

Remembering and honoring
the varied lives of . . .

BETTY NALLS
my neighbor and friend
21 January 1928 ~ 17 January 2018

IOLA AVRETT
my 1st cousin once removed
11 February 1921 ~ 20 January 2018

DORRIS HENRY
mother of my 2nd cousins
19 January 1926 ~ 20 January 2018

Let them not vanish

like ghosts of forgotten memories . . . 

Prayer for the New Year

For Thy guidance all the way
Through the New Year, Lord, we pray,
And in deep humility
Pray for speedy victory.
Let us hear it sung again:
"Peace on earth; good will to men."
Let this year see nations freed
Once again from war and greed.
On the home front help us keep
Faith with those in plane and jeep.
On the land and on the sea
Fighting for our liberty.
Bring them back, whom we hold dear,
Early in this hopeful year.

This poem / prayer was written by Nancy Richey Ranson . . . who was Poet Laureate of Texas from 1941 'til 1943 . . . it was published in the Dallas Morning News on January 1, 1945 . . .

The Memory becomes a Kaleidoscope

On Thanksgiving day 
the memory becomes 
a kaleidoscope, 
and every minute 
the scene changes.

You give 
to the kaleidoscope of memory 
a turn 
and there they are, 
natural as life, 
around the country hearth 
on a cold winter night.

I see that old Thanksgiving dinner.

Father at one end, 
mother at the other end, 
the children between . . .

Of the ten at that table, 
all are gone save two -- 
some in village churchyard, 
some in city cemetery -- 
but we shall sit with them yet 
at a brighter banquet.

Rev. T. De Witt Talmage. (1832-1902)

Rockdale Reporter. (Rockdale, Tex.), Vol. 10, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 19, 1903 Page: 8 of 10

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