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 . . .

A long time ago . . .

A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. They drove away and left it lonely and empty in the clearing among the big trees, and they never saw that little house again.

from
Little House on the Prairie
by
Laura Ingalls Wilder
07 February 1867 - 10 February 1957

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

Today I visited yesterday . . .

Today I visited yesterday
And walked among the graves
Of family and friends from long ago
Whose memory had begun to fade.


  The graves were unattended
As were my thoughts of them
When a vision of the ages past
Brought back my sense of kin.

The vision showed the church lawn
On a crisp summer day
The table spread, the food prepared
And friends who would break bread.

  All my relatives were there
both young and old
Grandma and I walked hand and hand
Sharing stories never told.

We laughed and cried
And shared our thoughts
And I found the friend
I thought I'd lost.

As the sun began to fade . . .
The church bell rang out clear
Grandma and the others
slowly disappeared . . .

  Today I visited yesterday
And now the memory is strong
Of the family from which I came . . . and now belong . . .

by Pat Conner Rice

We are formed by our family histories

How easy it is to forget from where family has come and how far. How easy to forget, as I sit at my computer, my grandfather's battered lunch pail, and my grandmother leaning over an aluminum tub with a washboard and Grandpa's soapy shirt. Such knowledge brings humility. It demands gratitude. We are formed, in part, by our family histories. . . . from Family history is more than names by Tina Griego, Denver Post Columnist

A hundred year old photograph

A hundred year old photograph
Stares out from a frame
And if you look real close you'll see
Our eyes are just the same

I never met them face to face
But I still know them well
From the stories
My dear grandma would tell . . .

They're my guardian angels
And I know they can see
Ev'ry step I take
They are watching over me

I might not know where I'm goin'
But I'm sure where I come from
They're my guardian angels
And I'm their special one

Words & Music by
Don Schlitz, John Jarvis & Naomi Judd
Copyright 1989
Song Name: Guardian Angels
Artist Name: The Judds
Album: The Essential Judds
Release Date: October 10, 1995 (my Dad's last birthday on this earth)
Label: RCA Records