FAMILY HISTORY: POETRY Collection written by Elsie Strawn ARMSTRONG
  
  File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Les Howard Strawn
  
  Copyright 2006.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
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  A description of my mother:
  
  In height she was five feet,
      Four inches and a half,
  Was rather grave and sober,
      And did but seldom laugh.
  
  And if she chanced to laugh,
      She never made a noise,
  She said for girls
      'Twas unbecoming.
  
  Her words were rather few,
      Her government was good,
  Her children did obey her,
      She let them know they should.
  
  She kept us well at work,
      Then work was very plenty,
  As regular at five
      As at fifteen or twenty.
  
  She said, for our encouragement,
      We had best do all we could,
  When we were about to leave her,
      Help us the more she would.
  
  Her weight at twenty-three
      Was one hundred twenty-seven,
  But when she arrived at thirty,
      Two hundred and eleven.
  
  When she arrived at forty,
      Two hundred thirty-two,
  She always was industrious,
      Found plenty still to do.
  
  She often met with accidents,
      Her sufferings were extreme,
  With broken bones and joints put out,
      "Twas plainly to be seen.
  
  But still she labored on,
      Up to a good old age,
  She was almost eighty
      Before she left the stage.