Begotten & never forgotten

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."




Begotten . . .
and may they never be forgotten . . .
Remembering . . .   

Berta Mary Sharp

and her mother, Nellie Lemaire

Elizabeth Marilla Smith

and her mother, Eva May Brackett

Ima Lois Muston

and her mother, Emma Patience Nettles

Jerusha Marilla Barker

and her mother, Jerusha Lakin Hobbs

Josephine Wingfield Davis

and her mother, America James Fears

Mahala Lee Roberts

and her mother, Patsy Gill

Mary Alexandrien Lemaire

and her mother, Elizabeth Waring

Mary Annie West

and her mother, Sarah Mildred Carter

Mary Olive

and her mother, Clementine Jordan  

Nancy Virilla Quinn

and her mother, Sushannah

Phoebe Merrill

and her mother, Olive Jane Goodwin

The above family poem was composed by me 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 . . .