Ode to Sarah Hartley Denyer Foster (1836-1898)

It's time for the 89th Carnival of Genealogy: Ode to My Family's History - Where we were challenged to compose a poem appropriate 'as an introduction for a book or video on your family history.'

Poetry is one of my passions, and I've posted a lot of poetry on this blog -- my own and others. Below are a few that pertain directly to my family history:

• Ida (Denyer) Green wrote the poem Mother, about Zerelda Ann (Singleton) Denyer. Ida's father was the brother of my second great grandfather, Ebenezer Denyer. Ida spent some time living with her Uncle Ebenezer and Aunt Sarah (Hartley) Denyer after both her parents had died.

• My maternal grandmother's sister, Willa Van Every, also wrote a poem called Mother, about my great grandmother, Margaret (Denyer) Van Every, and Willa also mentions several of her siblings.

• I wrote Where I'm From - based on George Ella Lyon's Copy-Change template of the same name.

I've also written:

• E Pluribus Unum; Cognatus, Ergo Sum
• A Toast to the First and the Fourth of July
• Divergent Yet Intersecting
• And a few fun limericks, though none of them are specifically about my family history.

As soon as I heard the carnival theme, I knew I had to participate, even though any family history collections are likely a few years away from being written. I still have a lot of research to do. While I composed two odes, I am only going to share one of them. The other I am going to put aside for reasons of my own.

Ode to Sarah Hartley Denyer Foster (1836-1898)

she could tree a rabbit
catch a mess of fish
and raise a garden.

A granddaughter's description
of our shared ancestress,
a self-proclaimed Choctaw.

She married the son
of an itinerant minister
as the nation moved towards war.

Let's see if we too
can tree a few rabbits
as we pursue

the details of her life
and the lives of the children
she raised on her garden.

©2010 John C Newmark

Credits: Carnival Poster by footnoteMaven