I have a real treat for you today. (Well, it was a real treat for me!) Last weekend we found my great-grandmother’s poetry journal from high school in amongst a box of old (also delightful) pictures. After digging further, I think it was a combination copywork and poem composition book – with some original and some copied. It was so neat to flip through, read her poems, and admire her lovely penmanship. (Penmanship is something of a lost art these days, don’t you think?)

Look at the lettering for the Index!
And the lovely penmanship!

This poem is called “The Ford” and the earliest reference I could find is a book called “Funny Stories About the Ford” dated 1915. My great-grandmother’s version is slightly different, and I found TONS of variations on the internet, many of them claiming to be written by relatives. I wonder if they, too, found a composition book and assumed it was an original rather than a copybook? 😉

And more lovely penmanship.

This one’s called “Hell in Texas,” and the oldest reference I found was a page about “Jack Thorp, Cowboy Poet” but even then its origins are uncertain. This poem had my mom and I giggling and chuckling, but you might need to have lived in Texas before and experienced the hot summers, the scorpion stings, and the horny toads to find it as humorous as we did. =)

At any rate — I wanted to share a couple of pictures and poems with you here, but you can find the rest of my journal entry at iHomeschool Network, because today it’s my turn to write for the hop! So hop on over and check it out!

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Amber

Hey, y’all! I’m Amber and I wear many hats. I drink a ton of coffee and I’m constantly sweeping crumbs off the floor. After 20+ years of homeschooling, we are starting over at preschool with our fourth, Lil Miss Mouse. She keeps us young and she’s the main reason for my excessive coffee consumption. Drink up!