Treasured Books: Burns' Poems

Between the weather and my cold, there was no chance of an outside blip today. I've spent most of the day doing genealogical research, but I didn't think you'd want to see my computer screen, so I pulled this small book from amongst the old books my mother left to me.

There is no publication date inside, but my great-great-grandmother, Susan Jane Watkins Werth, wrote her name and "1899" in pencil in the front of the book, and below it, my mother wrote her name and the date she was given the book by her great-grandmother -- July 1931.

This gift was passed down the generations just a month before Susan Jane died at age 91, having lived through the Civil War, World War I, and many other historic events. She was born Susan Jane Watkins in 1839, her parents' second child. Their first child, Sally, died of a "brain inflammation" at age "14 months and one day," according to a family Bible record.

Four months pregnant with her second child when Sally died, the bereft parents named the second daughter Susan Jane, just like her mother. Sadly, the new baby hardly had a chance to know her mother, as she died shortly before her 25th birthday, when Susan Jane was just ten months old.

An undated document left by my maternal grandmother says "Her mother died and her Grandfather -- Col. Joseph Martin -- took her back to his home and reared her with her aunts and uncles." Her grandfather was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, the Virginia State Senate, and the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1829-1830, so Susan Jane would have had a stimulating upbringing. It was clear that she enjoyed poetry, as there are pencil marks by some of the verses and an occasional note in this volume.

This book is quite small, just over 4 x 6 inches (approximately 10 x 15 cm), a lovely size for a woman's hands. As did my mother and her great-grandmother, I count it among my treasured possessions.