Amanuensis Monday - Grandma Hill's Poetry, Week 36

Hoarders

The hoarders help Hitler, when they grumble, groan and mutter

And say they are cheated, when they can’t get

sugar, coffee and butter.

They carry home great sacks full of foods

and juices in cans

Get irate at the grocer and baker, when not able

to get all demands.

Patriotic?  A, yes, the American flag is on

the windshields of all their cars

Yet they drive these cars to haul home their ill-gotten jars.

Just hear the clamor and roar, when they speak about meat

I wonder, were they in Europe, how much

could they get to eat?

They bootleg on gasoline, rubber and tires

Who says they are scarce are big liars.

And now, when they have to plod along

on their poor shoeless feet

They are yelling so loudly, that it’s giving the dictators a treat.

That there is a war on, they don’t seem to be aware

And what’s more, are too selfish

and greedy to care.

Business and leisure must go on in the same usual way.

Hungry, shoeless, unarmed soldiers will save them

while they idle and play.

So why should they do without what they want,

or try anything to save?

What care they for mothers who weep, and think

of sons asleep in a foreign grave.

Note: There is little doubt as to how Grandma felt about rationing (or not).

Nancy Jane Wiley Hill (1875-1960) was always writing something.  Many of those poems are now in the possession of her granddaughter Shirley Kern.  Shirley, with the help of her sister-in-law Ruth Ormsby, transcribed these poems in 1996 for a Hill-Ormsby-Kern family reunion.  I am going to post many of these poems so that they may be enjoyed by all.

These are copyright 1996 and reprinted with permission.