Grandma Climbed the Family Tree

There’s been a change in Grandma, we’ve noticed as of late

She’s always reading history, or jotting down some date.

She’s tracing back the family, we’ll all have pedigrees,

Grandma’s got a hobby, she’s Climbing Family Trees....

Poor Grandpa does the cooking, and now, or so he states,

he even has to wash the cups and the dinner plates.

Well, Grandma can’t be bothered, she’s busy as a bee,

Compiling genealogy for the Family Tree.

She has not time to baby-sit, the curtains are a fright.

No buttons left on Grandpa’s shirt, the flower bed’s a sight.

She’s given up her club work, the serials on TV,

The only thing she does nowdays is climb the Family Tree.

The mail is all for Grandma, it comes from near and far.

Last week she got the proof she needs to join the DAR.

A momumental project - to that we all agree,

A worthwhile avocation - to climb the Family Tree.

There were pioneers and patriots mixed with our kith and kin,

Who blazed the paths of wilderness and fought through thick and thin.

But none more staunch than Grandma, whose eyes light up with glee,

Each time she finds a missing branch for the Family Tree.

To some it’s just a hobby, to Grandma it’s much more.

She learns the joys and heartaches of those who went before.

They loved, they lost, they laughed, they wept -- and now for you and me,

They live again in spirit around the Family Tree.

At last she’s nearly finished, and we are each exposed.

Life will be the same again, this we all suppose.

Grandma will cook and sew, serve crullers with our tea.

We’ll have her back, just as before that wretched Family Tree.

by Virginia Day McDonald, Macon, GA