Cornelia McFalls

One of our newest donations is a book of poems titled Forget-me-nots and Other Poems by Cornelia McFalls a local poetess. She was born May 10, 1831 in Rossie to Louis and Charity Pierce. On her 20th birthday she married Dr. David McFalls. She won some fame for writing campaign songs for the Hayes and Wheeler ticket in 1876. She died October 1909. Just before she died she had just completed the book but it was not published until after her death by Ruchard G. Badger, The Gorham Press Boston Mass.

Here is an except. It's a poem titled BIRTH-DAY POEM (this is how it was titled in the book) that she wrote to her daughter Alida when she turned 14.

"Now fourteen summers round your head

 Dear "Bobbin" thus, have quickly fled

 And all, the world to you, will seem

 Like one, continuous happy dream.

 To thee dear darling, I impart ;

 The love that fills my inmost heart;

 The cherished hopes, the fond desires,

 To which a mother's heart aspires'

 I read within your little face

 The father's likeness I can trace

 All the deep love that heretofore

 Had filled my heart in days of yore;

 And now again returns in thee

 Looks sacred, then in memory ;

 Time never changes, youth must glide

 From chilhood's hour to Woman's Pride!

 And Love, that presence, must Divine!

 Some time, dear child

 Will too be thine!

 Oh! God! I pray! this change

 May be a reign of bliss, dear one to thee."