On the occasion of their third wedding anniversary, my mother made a 78 rpm record for my father. Although the sound quality is very poor, you will be able to hear her voice, and--oh, my!--she sounds so young!
After a short intro, I recognized the lines of a poem. I was able to find several versions of it online, which enabled me to create the following transcription despite the fact that you can barely hear some of the words as she reads them.
Today is January 5th, 1949.This poem is said to have been written by Roy Croft. I tried to find out more about him, but no one seems to know for sure who he is or was. Research librarian Ted Nesbitt discusses Roy Croft at AllExperts.com.
Just three short years ago we were married,
and now we have Linda to share our happiness
and make our anniversary even more complete.
For you, darling, I have a special message:
I love you not only for what you are,
but for what I am when I am with you.
I love you not only for what you are making of yourself,
but for what you are making of me.
I love you for that part of me that you bring out.
I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
and passing over all the foolish and frivolous and weak things
you could not help dimly seeing there,
and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful and radiant qualities
that no one else had looked quite deep enough to find.
I love you for ignoring the possibility of the fool in me,
and for laying hold of the possibility for good.
I love you for closing your ears to the discords in me,
and for adding to the harmony in me by reverent listening.
I love you because you are helping me
to make of the structure of my life not a tavern, but a temple;
and out of the words of my every day, not a reproach, but a song.
I love you because you have done
more than any creed could have done to make me good,
and more than any fate could have done to make me happy.
You have done all this just by being yourself
and I love you very much.
Interestingly, Wikipedia has an article entitled Roycroft, about the Roycroft community and movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. Having read that and Nesbitt's comments, I have my own little speculation on the subject. I think "Roy Croft" may have been either a pen name of Elbert Hubbard or a misunderstood attribution to his "Roycroft Press" publishing company. But you probably ought not to quote me on that! I'm just sayin'! And I don't have time to research it myself. Dear reader, you are welcome to do so at will and report back!
7 comments:
This poem by Roy Croft is one of my all time favorites. It is printed in a book of poems my great-grandmother gave my great-grandfather, which has been handed down to me.
Miriam, thanks for commenting on this. I'd be interested to know what the publication date of your book is, and who the publisher was.
T.K.:
The Family Book of Best-Loved Poems published by Hanover House/Doubleday & Company in 1952; edited by David L. George
Interesting - I too believe that this poem is Elbert Hubbard but there is nothing attributing it to him that I can find on the Web.
I have always been a big fan of his writing and the Arts & Crafts community he established near Buffalo NY.
Problem is that today you tell people you love Elbert Hubbard and they hear "L. Ron Hubbard" and run the other way.
Oh, my, aren't you glad that you discovered these recordings. This makes me want to get my records preserved as well. I wonder if our parents had the same radio/recorder since my parents were making the same records during the same time period.
Thanks, Miriam. I imagine there must have been some kind of effort to obtain permission to include this poem in the anthology, unless it was known to be out of copyright. But ???
Thomas, I couldn't find anything about that on the web either, although now there's you & me and our speculations... ;-)
Also, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who considers this a possibility!
Cheryl, I did tell you, I hope, that Demian gave me the turntable to convert records to digital files, and that I am planning to "do" your records at some future point in time when we get together.
Any other GeneaBloggers with homemade records to convert? I'll be glad to do it if I can. I haven't tried out the process yet, but my nephew assures me it's easy.
What a treasure! I am so thankful for recorders, photos, and video! Our children and grandchildren will have such wonderful insight into who their grandparents were!
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