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

The River Note

And I behold once more
My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,
The same blue wonder that my infant eye
Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--
Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed
The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,
And where thereafter in the world he went.
Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now
He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales
With his redundant waves.
Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,
I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,
Much triumphing,--and these the fields
Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly,
A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.
And hark! where overhead the ancient crows
Hold their sour conversation in the sky:--
These are the same, but I am not the same,
But wiser than I was, and wise enough
Not to regret the changes, tho' they cost
Me many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb;
These trees and stones are audible to me,
These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,
I understand their faery syllables,
And all their sad significance. The wind,
That rustles down the well-known forest road--
It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.
The stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,
All of them utter sounds of 'monishment
And grave parental love.
They are not of our race, they seem to say,
And yet have knowledge of our moral race,
And somewhat of majestic sympathy,
Something of pity for the puny clay,
That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.
I feel as I were welcome to these trees
After long months of weary wandering,
Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs;
They know me as their son, for side by side,
They were coeval with my ancestors,
Adorned with them my country's primitive times,
And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.


Ralph Waldo Emerson
25 May 1803 - 27 April 1882

Men like my father cannot die

Men like my father cannot die.

They are with me still,
real in memory as they were in flesh,
loving and beloved forever.

How green was my valley then.

Philip Dunne (1908-1992), U.S. screenwriter.
The narrator (Irving Pichel),
How Green Was My Valley (1941).

Must we forever part?

The following was submitted by a family member for publication in the Rockdale Reporter in 1912 following the 10th of February death of my 2nd great-grandpa, William Paschal Henry (1836-1912) . . .


'Tis hard to break the tender cord,
When love has bound our hearts.
'Tis hard, so hard to speak the words
Must we forever part?
Dearest father we have laid thee
In the peaceful grave's embrace,
But thy memory will be cherished,
'Til we see they heavenly face.

We miss thee from our home, dear father,
We miss thee from thy place,
A shadow o'er our life is cast;
We miss the sunshine of thy face.

We miss thy kind and willing hand,
Thy fond and earnest care,
Our home is dark without thee;
Yes, we miss thee everywhere.

We would call not back the dear departed,
Anchored safe where storms are o'er
In the border land we left him,
Soon to meet and part no more.

Far beyond this world of changes,
Far beyond this world of care,
We shall find our missing loved one,
In our Father's mansion fair.

One by one earth's ties are broken,
As we see our love decay;
And the hopes so fondly cherished
Brighten but to pass away.

One by one our hopes grow brighter
As we near the shining shore,
For we know across the river
Wait the loved ones gone before.


Jesus while our hearts are bleeding
O'er the spirits that death has won,
We would at this meeting,
Calmly say, "Thy will be done."


Though cast down we're not forsaken,
Though afflicted not alone,
Thou didst give and thou has taken,
Blessed Lord, "Thy will be done."

Anonymous

Farewell, Old Year

Farewell, Old Year, we walk no more together,
I catch the sweetness of thy latest sigh;
And, crowned with yellow brake and withered heather,
I see thee stand beneath this cloudy sky.

Here, in the dim light of a gray December,
We part in smiles, and yet we met in tears,
Watching thy chilly dawn, I well remember
I thought thee saddest born of all the years.


I knew not then what precious gifts were hidden
Under the mists that veiled thy path from sight;
I knew not then that joy would come unbidden
To make thy closing hours divinely bright.


I only saw the dreary clouds unbroken,
I only heard the plash of icy rain;
And in that winter gloom, I found no token
To tell me that the sun would shine again.


O dear Old Year, I wronged a Father's kindness;
I would not trust Him with my load of care,
I stumbled on in weariness and blindness,
And lo! He blessed me with an answered prayer.


Good-bye, kind Year! We walk no more together,
But here in quiet happiness we part;
And, from thy wreath of faded fern and heather,
I take some sprays and wear them on my heart.


by
Sarah Doudney (1841-1926)
found in
1882 The Living Age

Precious Memories

Precious mem'ries, unseen angels
Sent from somewhere to my soul
How they linger, ever near me
And the sacred past unfold.

Precious mem'ries, how they linger
How they ever flood my soul
In the stillness of the midnight
Precious, sacred scenes unfold.


Precious father, loving mother
Fly across the lonely years
And old home scenes of my childhood
In fond memory appear.


In the stillness of the midnight
Echoes from the past I hear
Old-time singing, gladness bringing
From that lovely land somewhere.


I remember mother praying
Father, too, on bended knee
Sun is sinking, shadows falling
But their pray'rs still follow me.


As I travel on life's pathway
Know not what the years may hold
As I ponder, hope grows fonder
Precious mem'ries flood my soul.


J.B.F. Wright (1923)

Do not stand at my grave and weep . . .

Gentle Autumn's Rain

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain

When you wake in the morning hush
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft starlight at night
I am the song that will never end
I am the love of family and friend

I am the child who has come to rest
In the arms of the Father  who knows him best
When you see the sunset fair
I am the scented evening air
I am the joy of a task well done
I am the glow of the setting sun

Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die

Original verse by Mary Frye (1932)
Additional verse by Wilbur Skeels (1996)

Graves of our fathers . . .

"Who are these graves we know not,

Only know they are our fathers."

From a post by . . . :: footnoteMaven :: . . . about an 1887 Guide to Genealogists on How To Write The History of a Family.