The Bentztown Bard

Continuing in my series of poems and the like from papers recieved from my grandmother’s apartment when she went into hospice:

Folger McKinsey, the Bentztown Bard, wrote a column in the Baltimore Sun called Good Morning from 1906 to 1948.  It was so popular that it was reprinted for some time afterward.  This column consisted of poems, and my grandmother had clipped a few and saved them. Each column began with the following poem, written by Carlotta Perry:

It was only a glad “Good Morning”
As she passed along the way.
But it spread the morning’s glory
Over the livelong day!

The poems are here.

More information on B.B. is here.

Bread Upon The Waters

Amongst my grandmother’s papers, a letter an poem to my great-grandfather upon my great-grandmother’s death.  Letter and poem after the jump.  I have retained all spelling errors from the original.

A Message from Paradise

The first poem found in my grandmother’s papers:

A Message from Paradise

What mean you by this weeping
To break my very heart?
We both are in God’s keeping
And therefore cannot part.

You there – I here – though severed
We still at heart are one;
I only just in sunshine,
The shadows scarcely gone.

What if the clouds surround you,
You can the brightness see;
‘Tis only “just a little way”
That leads from you to me.

I was so very weary,
Surely you cannot mourn
That I a little sooner
Should lay my burden down.

Then weep not, weep not, darling, -
God wipes away all tears;
‘Tis only “just a little while”
Though you may call it years.

–Adelaide Proctor

How to put your thoughts on paper

My grandmother went in to hospice a week or two ago, and being as I took interest in the subject, she’s given me the collection of genealogy paperwork she’s built up over the years (and there’s a ton of it).  Amongst the birth, marriage, and death certificates, she had stashed all sorts of other papers, including recipes, poems, and this gem:  a booklet written by Theodore Irwin for the General Motors personnel staff entitled How to put your thoughts on paper.

I absolutely love the art style in this book, and the pointers it has towards writing are good too.  I’ve scanned it and posted it to flickr so that you may enjoy it also.  It was written in 1959, and I haven’t been able to find a renewal for it’s copyright, so I believe it to be in the public domain now.  If it is not, let me know and I’ll take it down.  Click on the front cover for the flickr set, or go past the jump for clickable links to each page.  Oh, and as for the poems and recipes, stay tuned.  As I try to get all of this stuff organized, I will be posting some of them here.