William Holmes McGuffey – birth, Sep. 23, 1800

William Holmes McGuffey was born this date, 9/23/1800, in western PA.  Later his family moved to the Ohio frontier where he was raised.  He became a professor of languages at Miami University in Ohio.  McGuffey was a minister and an advocate of public education when it was in a much purer stage. 

 

He compiled six readers (in progressive levels which carried true moral tones. 

His McGuffey Readers may have sold as many as 120 million copies. 

Personal note – my dad, Clyde D. Bryan, used McGuffey’s Electic Spelling Book in Murry City, Ohio in 1912.  I possess that book with Dad’s childish signature.

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Clyde D Bryan – birth, 2/5/1904

“HOME”

Christmas eve came and went,

The year’s most prestigious event,

Without one gift received or sent from home.

The place where once had been seen,

Things that build memory so keen,

When days were hard and times were lean, at home.^[1]

 

A lonely man knelt by his bed,

Wrinkled hands held his graying head,

As slowly these sad words he said down home,

“Lord, I don’t understand

All the ways of God with man;

Why I, alone, of all the clan am home.”

 

Then rising deliberately,

His hands toward heaven in a plea,

With eyes tear-blurred, he could not see his home.

He talked at length to His God,

‘Bout the graves under winter’s sod,

Where loved ones lay who used to trod in home.

 

“Amen,” he said, and clinched his prayer,

Between God, so gloriously fair,

And his mortal soul, earth-bound there, to home.

Satisfied that God’s way is best,

He blew out the light of his nest,

And gave the grate a log to bless the home.

 

He went to sleep that Christmas Eve,

Believing as saints do believe,

Trusting God, he’d no longer grieve ’round home.

For the three who’d passed death’s door,

To walk familiar paths no more,

Making him the last of four, now home.

 

Little did the gentleman dream,

That the world which sad did seem,

He’d be leaving ere sun’s first gleam lit home.

The foursome would that Christmas morn.

No longer to be sad and torn,

Gone now would be the long forlorn of home.

 

The close circle, broken of yore,

Then met [2] inside the Pearly Door,

The old man made the last of four come home.

They now were there in perfect love,

They’d traded partridge for the dove,

Never to say “Good-bye” above. THAT’S HOME!

                – eab, 12/76 (pre-23^rd )

Note the footnote.  Clyde D Bryan, my dad, was born this date (2/5/1904) in Murry City, Ohio.  This poem was not written about him but was penned just prior to his untimely death.  As some parallels existed it seemed fitting to place it here for Dad’s birthday.  One never fully gets over the loss of his dad. (He died before the sun came up on the 24th 1976.)

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^[1] My dad, Clyde D. Bryan, was severely burned on the 23^rd and died the morning of the of 24^th .  There was no premonition, yet dad was the last to die of his family of four. 

[2] I wish all four Bryans made heaven, but my poem is not claiming that.

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