Sentimental Sunday :: Mother's Day

Our Adorable Mom!

ca. 1951

Sentimental Sunday :: The Voices of my Grandmas

Remembering the Grandmas . . .
for 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."

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

• 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
• Mollie 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 benotforgot 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 . . .

Sentimental Sunday :: Mommy and Me

Sixty years ago today . . . on Mother's Day in the year 1951 . . . the beautiful young woman in this bricolage was about three months pregnant with the little one shown in the photos . . . the rose in the background is a 1932 antique rose called the Fairy Rose . . . the year of origin of that rose is the same year this young Mother was born in Essex County, Massachusetts . . . she was living in Texas (the home state of her Father, and his Mother and maternal Grandpa before him) by the time she started school, and has been here since . . . the Keeper of this family history blog is the little one in the photos . . . she is the first of four lucky children who are privileged to call this lovely woman Mom . . . Happy Mother's Day, Mom . . . luv you bunches . . . and thank you . . . for everything! . . .

Sentimental Sunday :: 1st Mother's Day

On this date in our U.S. history . . . the 9th day of May . . . in the year 1914 . . . President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation setting aside the second Sunday in May as the official Mother's Day -- this day to be a national expression of love and reverence for the mothers of the country. The proclamation, issued 95 years ago today, read in part as follows:

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the said Joint Resolution, do hereby direct the government officials to display the United States flag on all government buildings and do invite the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.

So if you happen to drive by my house tomorrow, and wonder why there's a flag flying in my yard, it's flying for my Mom and my sisters and the Mommies of my grand-nephews. And it's flying for the grandmas . . .




Tomorrow will be the first Mother's Day for two of my beautiful nieces -- which means that I have officially been a grand-aunt for almost eight months now -- and this collage is for the new Mommies.

• That's my Mom in the lower left corner.
• At the top, on the left, is my middle sister holding her middle child, who is in turn holding her own son in the photo just to the right.
• On the right side of the collage, the lower photo is my youngest sister holding her first born child, who in turn is holding her own son in the upper right photo.

  They choose a day to honor her And rightful homage to her pay, Yet always I'm compelled to think That every day is Mother's Day. Jean Guillaume