Sunday, July 6, 2014

Autobiography

Grandmother Davies made a red and white coverlet,
Letty Reed, a sampler, cross-stitched 1795.
Mary Miller's linen sheets were skillfully handwoven,
And six chairs of needlepoint keep Sally Hughes alive.
But as for their great-granddaughter, Mary Willis Shuey,
 She pieced no quilts, made no hooked rugs, her breads and jams don't matter,
The things they saved so carefully she used seven days a week,
She broke a Wedgwood bowl, cracked a yellow Lowestoft platter.
Count the hall-marked silver teaspoons, sort the Spode and pewter,
 Sandwich glass and Sheffield servers, treasures of the past,
The last granddaughter added nothing to their heirlooms;
She made and saved some poems-not a single thing to last.

 MARY WILLIS SHUEY.

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