Grandfather's poetry

Just a quick note to link to the second entry in my little flood saga over on my decluttering blog.


This is a picture of two things I am incredibly thrilled to have saved: a picture of my grandfather as a young man (I swear he resembles John Lennon a bit!) and a small book of his poetry, all brief 4-line pieces.

Here's one:

Elusive Truth

Long I thought that truth
Lay hid in far-off places,
But found it close at home--
Writ on little children's faces.
--George T. Harbeson


I never knew my grandfather - he died a decade or so before I was born. My mother adored him and at the last of her life it was "Daddy" she called for over and over.

He was a writer and a farmer - of flowers! At the turn of the the century, he had a bookstore in New York. This book was undoubtedly printed up on the little press they used to have - he and my mother made numerous little booklets of her poetry (I hope I run across some of them in the things that we saved.) And it must have been done by my mother after his death because there is a memorial poem by her at the end:

To George T. Harbeson

They say that you are dead,
But we two are never far apart,
For the words that you have said
Are singing in my heart.
-- His daughter