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)

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

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 . . .

Time's swift tide

When we shall have passed away, may some pilgrim linger near the spot where we are laid, perchance bestow a passing glance or smile of recognition on the name of him whose motives were unselfish, whose humble deeds live on making the very atmosphere heavy with the sweet perfume of goodness.


When beauty's face with youth no longer glows,
When Time's swift tide for us no longer flows.
May children's children read, some far off day,
The name above our long-forgotten clay.
And find a fragrant blossom o'er our dust,
Which breathes a benediction of the just.
Official Report of the American Tyler Family Reunion

F.F.W. :: Fit For Wives

SOUTHERN BROAD-AXE [WEST POINT, MS], May 11, 1859, p. 4, c. 1. Every family ought to keep a kitten to amuse the children. They should also keep children to amuse the kitten.

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It is proposed to establish an institution for the education of young ladies in which the science of weaveology, spinology and cookology will form a part. After obtaining these accomplishments they may receive the degree of F.F.W. -- Fit for Wives.