An Unexpected Discovery

Philadelphia

I'm trying to consolidate things. Sort of a spring housecleaning, I suppose.

I started in the living room, scanning the things displayed; deciding which ones were "keepers' and which were not. There was an alabaster box that must have been my mother's although I don't remember it there. I absentmindedly lifted the lid. Inside the box, I found several small newspaper clippings, yellowed with age, carefully cut and folded to fit into the oblong box.
Some were poems with titles like "Slow Me Down, Lord" or "Sharing". Some were articles like "How To Keep Well" by T.R. Van Dellen, M.D.


My hunch is that these clippings were probably saved by my grandmother, Ada. I found little sayings tucked into her well worn King James version family Bible when I was checking it for her genealogy.

She probably cut these clippings out of the Waterloo Daily Courier, my Iowa hometown newspaper. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, that paper, and others like it in communities all over the country, were the major source of information--no internet, not the heavy news coverage of today's television since there were essentially three networks and public television. There was always a feature column, lots of human interest stories, and poetry, tidbits like household hints, and detailed obits. It was homey, so to speak.Dr. Van Dellen, in a column dated 1965, suggests that "music is medicine for many people." He adds: Dancing has more to offer than ordinary physical activity Many with orthopedic problems can waltz or rumba with ease." Do you suppose they know that on "Dancing With The Stars?"

My favorite, though, is dated May 14, 1944, entitled "Twilight Hours."

There's nothing so sweet to the tired soul,
When the toil of day is o'er,
As the calm and peace of the twilight hour,
As I sit outside the door.

The breeze sings a lullaby sweet and low,
As sleepy birds seek their nest.
The shadows lengthen, then disappear,
And the whole world sinks to rest.

The myriad stars look down on me
From a sky of deepening blue;
Their long, long hours of vigil to keep,
So steady, so firm, so true.

Then low in the east the moon appears
In his lazy bashful way.
With sometimes a smile, sometimes a frown,
To reign til the break of day.

Then I rise refreshed from my daily task,
For I felt God's presence near;
having seen the veil 'twixt the Great Beyond,
And my soul shall know no fear.


I can imagine her watching the twilight turn to darkness.

Grandma Ada died when I was ten, but I remember her long silver streaked dark hair pulled back into a soft bun, her round, lined face and sad grey-blue eyes. She didn't talk much ( although that could be for several reasons, not the least of which was that we were a chatty family and it was hard to get a word in edgewise. ) She raised six kids on a dairy farm pretty much on her own after her husband died in his 40s of consumption ( probably pneumonia ). Through the depression years, she worked so that my mother could go to college--a very unusual thing in the 1930s--to be a elementary school teacher. My mom used to say she was a saint.

Lovely memories in that little alabaster box.

M.C.