Writing Contest Winner! My Life in Rhyme by Grace K Lee

I  am very proud to present to you another of our winners in our recent Okefenokee Heritage Center Writer's Guild Writing Contest!

The following poem is by Grace K Lee, a Ware County resident' and our second place Adult Poetry winner!  She is 86 years old and a great storyteller, a lively reader and a wonderful person to spend time with.  Welcome to the Guild and congratulations!

Myself, Tom Strait with Grace Lee.  We are holding a copy of her poem, from a binder filled with her wonderful stories.


My Life in Rhyme

by Grace K Lee

I was born in Nineteen Twenty-eight,

They said it was a Great Depression.

But we had as much as our neighbors had,

So we lacked for next to nothing.

My sister was seven years older than I,

She loved to Primp and Priss.

I was Daddy's little helper,

And he taught me how to fish.

I could climb the tallest tree,

And give a Tarzan yell.

Yet everyone in our whole town,

Thought of our family well.

As my brother and mentor, Tom, helped me have fun,

There were ten acres there where we could both play.

It was on the south edge of Broxton Town,

And not far away.

After doing the things on Mama's work list,

With friends we could swing or hide.

We used the top of the little corn crib,

And had a wonderful slide.

I graduated from Broxton High in Nineteen Forty-five.

My head was filled with knowledge.

Thomas was off with Uncle Sam,

And I went away to college.

I started out in my teaching career

At the early age of twenty.

I know I did not know everything,

But thought I knew plenty.

Back down the road, along somewhere,

I'd met this older man.

A farm boy who's now home from war,

And ready to settle down.

He had come before, with a friend,

And met me at my gate.

I'd thought him much too old for me,

But now he's only Twenty-eight.

He told to me some wonderful words

And gave to me his heart,

It turned my head completely around,

And I knew right from the start.

That I would never regret a moment,

If I began a double life.

Of becoming a school teacher,

And being a farmer's wife!

After nearly fifty years of married life,

All our skies were bright.

God took him away in an instant,

And it did not seem quite right.

It left me angry, then terrified,

I didn't know what to do.

But during all my prayers, I realized,

God's plans do all come true.

My farmer had left our four children,

Each educated and in homes of their own,

They will come by to help me,

And stay in touch by a phone.

For I've seen each of their eyes,

and on into their hearts

The traits of the farmer boy 

I have loved from the very start.