The Fifth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge

This poem is submitted for Bill West’s Fifth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge.  

You can read all about it at this page:

http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-fifth-annual-great-genealogy-poetry.html

Bertha Louise (Roberts) Wilkinson
1897 - 1990

My grandmother, Bertha Louise Roberts, came to Massachusetts from Yorkshire, England in 1915. She married my grandfather, Donald Munroe Wilkinson, in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1925.  In England, she trained to be a children’s nurse (a Nanny) when she was only twelve years old. She was always a terrific story teller, and could recite dozens of poems.  She dreamed of writing poetry and being a poet.  I've submitted some of her other poems here for previous Genealogy Poetry Challenges.

I think that the New England weather always surprised Grammy.  It was not as mild and as predictable as the weather in England. Many of her poems are about weather, seasons, and nature.  The one I transcribed below is a poem she would often recite to me when I was a little girl. The last line makes me think that she was happy to have become a U.S. citizen.

Spring Time

By Bertha Roberts Wilkinson

Old man winter with a sigh

                Knew that he must say good bye

Miss Spring softly enters in

                Now the pleasant days begin

Windy March with huff and puff

                Miss Spring calls “Now, that’s enough!”

Gentler days will soon be here

                For it’s that time of the year

A little snow is still around

                But the little crocus can be found

Their little faces bravely raise

                To the sunshine’s warmer rays

Now that Spring is here one sees

                Green leaves growing on the trees

Nature busy waking up

                Daisies and the buttercup

Birds are singing far and near

                Songs for everyone to hear

Tulips in their bright array

                Gently on their stems will sway

We see children at their play

                Outdoors now most every day

Roller skates and bouncing ball

                Jumping, skipping, growing tall

Thank Heavenly Father for the spring

                For loving parents and everything

For mountains, valleys, skies so blue

                And for this Country, we thank thee, too.

Please click here to read more of Bertha’s poetry:

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/10/poems-by-my-grandmother.html

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo