PATIENCE HANNAH LIVINGSTILL

Patience Hannah Livingstill

Rest In Peace, beneath the sod,

Blessed daughter, Beloved wife,

Treasured mother, Returned to God.

Wild flowers decorate her grave,

white daisies, blue forget-me-nots,

wild asters; and birds sing for her

but family and friends seem have forgot

Patience Hannah Livingstill

though the stone says she was loved a lot;

yet seems they never come to visit her.

She lies cold and alone.

She lies beneath six feet of earth

and at her head a stone.

It says she came into this world

with the rising of the sun,

to live from eighteen hundred twenty four

until nineteen hundred one

with just a dash between the dates

to designate her years,

all her hopes and dreams and joys,

her sorrows, fears and tears.

‘Tis summer now.

The grass grows tall.

Leaves lay a quilt for her each fall.

Winter comes and snow drifts down

and Patience Hannah Livingstill

never speaks or makes a sound

as the wind moans

And the snow piles deep.

Patience Hannah Livingstill

quietly rest in peace.

Beneath the earth

she waits and sleeps.

I’ve wandered oft

among these stones,

among these souls

left here alone

and I oft times stop to visit

Patience Hannah Livingstill,

ask her unanswered questions

in her resting place there on the hill.

I often wondered about her life.

No kin, I guess, are still alive

but she was someone’s daughter

and she was someone’s wife

and someone’s mother in her life

and I wonder what her life was like.

I wonder what her life was like;

were they rich or poor?

Was she left to bear a widow’s burden?

Had her husband gone off to war?

Who were; what became of her children?

Was she a woman of deep faith?

Is she waiting for her Savior

as she sleeps in her resting place?

I wonder what the dreams were

of Patience Hannah Livingstill

as she sleeps beneath the sod

in her grave there on the hill.

I’ve oft tried to imagine

what life was like in her time.

I think of her as being pretty,

being loving, being kind.

Maybe they had a little farm

with an apple orchard there

and I picture her in gingham gown

with apple blossoms in her hair.

I imagine her laughing and dancing,

content and happy with her life,

caring for her family;

treasured mother, beloved wife,

working hard, so sweet and giving,

patient in times of good and times of strife,

in sickness, war, the cold hard days of winter;

and I ponder Patience life.

Was she a Godly woman

being true to Proverbs thirty-one,

honoring her God, her duties as a woman

until her life was done?

I’ve wondered and imagined

as I walked among the graves there on the hill,

who was she, this woman,

Patience Hannah Livingstill?

It was the name caught my attention

and seemed to my mind fill

with thoughts that maybe in some way

Patience was living still,

somewhere in another realm

beyond this earthly plain,

caught my imagination, my attention,

just something about her name.

Now Patience Hannah rest in peace.

At her head is a moss covered stone

that marks her grave there on the hill,

dust to dust, her spirit flown.

Patience Hannah Livingstill

Rest In Peace, beneath the sod,

Blessed daughter, Beloved wife,

Treasured mother, Returned to God.