Nancy's Notes
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Memories
By Nancy Burnett
My grandmother, Rubie Dean Buchwalter, was born in 1885. Early in life she was a school teacher in a oneroom school house in Lordstown, Ohio. Following her marriage, she and her husband moved to Warren, Ohio, where he opened a business and they raised two daughters. My cousin once told me we came from a long line of strong women, and I think she was right. My grandmother was one of the first women in the county to own her own car — much to my grandfather’s dismay. (He thought they were “new fangled” and would never catch on with the general population.) She used that car to drive to California on dirt roads with two female friends. She was a proud suffragette and a founding member of the local Home Culture Club, a group of like-minded women who met monthly to deliver well researched and “scholarly” papers on topics of national interest — projects which required frequent trips to the Warren Public Library as there was no Google. Following the death of her husband in 1946, she gave up her home and moved in with her two daughters, one in Warren and one in Cleveland, where she shared her time equally with each family and helped raise her five grandchildren. She was a story teller who regaled us often with tales of her youth. Our favorite was listening to stories of Lambie, their pet lamb, who used to hop stiff legged through their kitchen and exit to dine on my great-grandmother’s flower bed. She could recite the names of the presidents in order (there weren’t so many then) and would point out all the constellations in the sky. At this time of year, fond memories come flooding back to me as I think of all the lessons she taught us. In particular, I remember a poem she shared with us annually — a poem I have now recited annually to my children and which they in turn recite to their children. It is a poem written in the late 1800s by the American poet George Cooper. I share it now with you in the hope it will find its way into many more families in the future and with the sincere hope that we each pass on memories of those who lived productive yet unremarkable lives — and whom we loved. The Leaves and the Wind By George Cooper “Come little leaves,” said the wind one day, Come o’er the meadow with me and play; Put on your dresses of red and gold, For summer is gone and the days grow cold. Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call, Down they came fluttering, one and all. Over the brown fields they danced and flew, Singing the glad little songs they knew. Dancing and whirling, the little leaves went, Winter had called them, and they were content; Soon fast asleep in their earthy beds, The snow laid a cover lid over their heads.
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