Thursday, August 03, 2006
I would be an embarrassment to my pioneer ancestors
If I had any.
Damaris and Sterling, now, they had a great-grandma who walked into Missouri behind the family's covered wagon as a girl. She was a great-niece of Jefferson Davis, as an addition bragging point.
My grandpas were a truck driver, and a school teacher who became a small business owner in a small town. One grandma died when my mom was five, and the other led a rather interesting life in her youth -- she got shot in a speakeasy by a jealous wife! (She had got religion and settled down considerable by the time I knew her.)
The ancestor I got my name from was actually named something like Kreutz, but it was changed to Crites at Ellis Island, to make the spelling easier for the clerks, most likely.
On my mom's side, the Agees were once the Des Agee, Huguenots who came to America early on, fleeing Europe so they would not have to convert to Catholicism.
So, no hardy pioneer ancestors trekking west for me. Although I know my various grands and greats had rough times nevertheless, being as how it's part of the human condition and all.
Don't worry if all this makes no sense to you. I'm basically trying to cheer myself up out of a bad case of the sobby-sorry-for-myselfs.
Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) * Spoon River Anthology * 1916.
207. Lucinda Matlock
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.
Damaris and Sterling, now, they had a great-grandma who walked into Missouri behind the family's covered wagon as a girl. She was a great-niece of Jefferson Davis, as an addition bragging point.
My grandpas were a truck driver, and a school teacher who became a small business owner in a small town. One grandma died when my mom was five, and the other led a rather interesting life in her youth -- she got shot in a speakeasy by a jealous wife! (She had got religion and settled down considerable by the time I knew her.)
The ancestor I got my name from was actually named something like Kreutz, but it was changed to Crites at Ellis Island, to make the spelling easier for the clerks, most likely.
On my mom's side, the Agees were once the Des Agee, Huguenots who came to America early on, fleeing Europe so they would not have to convert to Catholicism.
So, no hardy pioneer ancestors trekking west for me. Although I know my various grands and greats had rough times nevertheless, being as how it's part of the human condition and all.
Don't worry if all this makes no sense to you. I'm basically trying to cheer myself up out of a bad case of the sobby-sorry-for-myselfs.
Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) * Spoon River Anthology * 1916.
207. Lucinda Matlock
I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.
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