I have been a member of Ancestry.com for many years, but this website has turned up many new family facts and previously unknown family members! It is very easy to use, and it is FREE! This website is fabulous and made all the better by wonderfully generous, contributing people. I want to do my part. Thank you to all.

I have loved the following poem and just discovered the author. I hope you find it, as I do, perfect for this site:

Dear Ancestor,
Your Tombstone stands among the rest,
Neglected and alone.
The name and dates are chiseled here,
On polished marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care,
Though it is too late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist,
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you,
In flesh and blood and bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago,
I wonder if you could have known,
Would spread among the ones you left
in all the seeds you've sown.
I wonder how you lived and loved?
I wonder if you ever knew?
That someday I would find you in this spot,
And come to visit you?

Walter Butler Palmer

About the Author: Walter Butler Palmer was by born, 22 Jun 1868 in Prairie Center, LaSalle, Illinois. He was the son of Ephraim Milo Palmer and Sarah Henderson Butler. He married Irena B. Lardin on 25 Sep 1889. A year and a half later, Irena died on May 1891. He married 2nd wife Mary Frances White on 11 Dec 1894 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois. They were the parents of two children; Burton White Palmer and Margaret Allison Palmer. He was a family historian, breeder of trotting and show horses, and an accomplished poet. He wrote the above poem "Dear Ancestor" in 1906 while he was visiting the grave of his great grandfather; Ephraim Palmer (1760-1852). He died 6 Jun 1932 in Ottawa, LaSalle, Illinois.

Sources: Buford Families, Ancestry.com, Palmer Archives from Roots Web

I have been a member of Ancestry.com for many years, but this website has turned up many new family facts and previously unknown family members! It is very easy to use, and it is FREE! This website is fabulous and made all the better by wonderfully generous, contributing people. I want to do my part. Thank you to all.

I have loved the following poem and just discovered the author. I hope you find it, as I do, perfect for this site:

Dear Ancestor,
Your Tombstone stands among the rest,
Neglected and alone.
The name and dates are chiseled here,
On polished marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care,
Though it is too late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist,
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you,
In flesh and blood and bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago,
I wonder if you could have known,
Would spread among the ones you left
in all the seeds you've sown.
I wonder how you lived and loved?
I wonder if you ever knew?
That someday I would find you in this spot,
And come to visit you?

Walter Butler Palmer

About the Author: Walter Butler Palmer was by born, 22 Jun 1868 in Prairie Center, LaSalle, Illinois. He was the son of Ephraim Milo Palmer and Sarah Henderson Butler. He married Irena B. Lardin on 25 Sep 1889. A year and a half later, Irena died on May 1891. He married 2nd wife Mary Frances White on 11 Dec 1894 in Chicago, Cook, Illinois. They were the parents of two children; Burton White Palmer and Margaret Allison Palmer. He was a family historian, breeder of trotting and show horses, and an accomplished poet. He wrote the above poem "Dear Ancestor" in 1906 while he was visiting the grave of his great grandfather; Ephraim Palmer (1760-1852). He died 6 Jun 1932 in Ottawa, LaSalle, Illinois.

Sources: Buford Families, Ancestry.com, Palmer Archives from Roots Web