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

Until I see you again

I read a note my grandma wrote back in nineteen twenty-three.
Grandpa kept it in his coat, and he showed it once to me. He said,
"Boy, you might not understand, but a long, long time ago,
Grandma's daddy didn't like me none, but I loved your Grandma so."

We had this crazy plan to meet and run away together.
Get married in the first town we came to, and live forever.
But nailed to the tree where we were supposed to meet, instead
Of her, I found this letter, and this is what it said:

If you get there before I do, don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through;
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.
And between now and then, till I see you again,
I'll be loving you. Love, me.

I read those words just hours before my Grandma passed away,
In the doorway of a church where me and Grandpa stopped to pray.
I know I'd never seen him cry in all my fifteen years;
But as he said these words to her, his eyes filled up with tears.

If you get there before I do, don't give up on me.
I'll meet you when my chores are through;
I don't know how long I'll be.
But I'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.
And between now and then, till I see you again,
I'll be loving you. Love, me.
Between now and then, till I see you again,
I'll be loving you. Love, me.

Performed by Collin Raye

Written
by
Skip Ewing & Max T. Barnes

How Green Was My Valley

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me, those who are to come. 

I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. 

And their eyes were my eyes.

As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever. 

Then I was not afraid, for I was in a long line that had no beginning, and no end, and the hand of his father grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line that stretched from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and Is Not Yet, raised their hands to show the link, and we found that we were one . . .

written by Richard Llewellyn
How Green Was My Valley

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Born 25th May 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts
Died 27th April 1882 in Concord Massachusetts



The love that is in me, the justice, the truth can never die & that is all of me that will not die. All the rest of me is so much death— my ignorance, my vice, my corporeal pleasure. But I am nothing else than a capacity for justice, truth, love, freedom, power. I can inhale, imbibe them forevermore. They shall be so much to me that I am nothing, they all. Then shall God be all in all. Herein is my Immortality. (October 24, 1836)



I said when I awoke, After some more sleepings & wakings I shall lie on this mattress sick; then dead; and through my glad entry they will carry these bones. Where shall I be then? I lift my head and beheld the spotless orange light of the morning beaming up from the dark hills into the wide Universe. (October 21, 1837)



The event of death is always astounding; our philosophy never reaches, never possesses it; we are always at the beginning of our catechism; alwasys the definition is yet to be made, What is Death? I see nothing to help beyond observing what the mind's habit is in regard to that crisis. Simply, I have nothing to do with it. It is nothing to me. After I have made my will & set my house in order, I shall do in the immediate expectation of death the same things I should do without it. (October 28, 1837)



Life & Death are apparitions. Last night the Teachers' Sunday School met here & the theme was Judgment. I affirmed that we were Spirits now incarnated & should always be Spirits incarnated. Our thought is the income of God. I taste therefore of eternity & pronounce of eternal law Now & not hereafter. Space & time are but forms of thought. I proceed from God now & ever shall so proceed. Death is but an appearance. Yes & life's circumstances are but an appearance through which the firm virtue of this God-law penetrates & which it moulds. The inertia of matter & of fortune & of our employment is the feebleness of our spirit. (May 14, 1838)



— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Journals

Penned with care

The following verse is from a 19th century friendship album that belonged to Berta Mary Henry nee Sharp (1873-1955)

Miss Berta

In the book of life
Gods album
May your name be
Penned with care
And may all who
Here have written
Write their names
Forever there.

Your friend
Russ

I have a hope beyond the grave

It is now night

and all is silent.
I am here alone
and in silence 
all my past friends
with all my relations
fall heavy on my mind.

They all are gone,
and I too must soon follow.

To be laid in the dust 
in the silent grave
and there to be 
forever forgotten
makes the cold chills 
run over my whole body.

I have a hope beyond the grave.

That hope is that 
when I am consigned 
to my grave,
someone on the earth 
might remember me.


From the Diary of Joseph Kemp

April 1, 1853

From The Tri-County Genealogical Society in Missouri. Found today while researching Cole Younger (a distant cousin), who died on this date in 1916. A fellow blogger once had this quote featured on their family history blog, stating that they first heard it on the BYU channel while watching the series, "Ancestors." I have not yet (as of 2009) found other references to a diary of a Joseph Kemp.