Fig Jelly

Caldonia

Her life at first was easy
Until her father was murdered
And the horse threw her off
Making movement difficult

She got married early
Her husband worked on the railroad
Her kids were young and happy
Sickness snuck up

Now the youngest child dead
The husband no where to be found
Sick lying in a hospital
Near death herself

Her daughters put into seperate orphanages
And yet she could do nothing
She waited avidly to get out
To be free of this death-seaking curse

Alas it ended
With hope she ran to her girls
But the father still no where to be found
Assumed dead by all

Life went from hard to harder
Her kids forced to work
As for herself
Helping a bording house day after day

At fourteen her oldest daughter found true love
And married him right off the back
She took in her mother
Life still hard, the orphanage blocked from memory

Caldonia helped her daughter
Watching her grandchildren come
She worked, her daughter worked, and soon her granddaughters did too
The middle one found her love, and married

She was happy
For once things were okay
Until she recieved the letter
And her heart fell to dispair

Caldonia took her in
With her great-grandson
Life took a while to readjust
But it got better

Years passed
Caldonia's eldest daughter Buela stood on the porch
When her father arrived
The man who had abandoned them and faked his death

She never told Caldonia
And soon Caldonia died
Her father now on his death bed
So she went, just because he asked

He lived in a mansion
He had lots of land
He had another daughter
And he had forsaken them

She cried herself to sleep that night
Sleeping in her father's guest room
For the first time in year she remembered
The orphanage she had tried so hard to forget

He died soon
By now the Great-Grandson of Caldonia was grown up
He got married
And became a preacher

He brought many people to Christianity
And had three children
His wife was strong and they were poor
But they worked hard and were happy

Years passed by slowly to him
But soon they came to rapid
He was diagnosed with Luceimia
And had very little time to live

He died, age 45
His son and two daughters going on with the legacy
Soon his son found a woman
Got married and had me

I'm now 17
And this is the recollections of my GGGgrandmother on down
I heard this story from Buela's middle daughter (my Greatgrandma)
This summer

In the house Buela built
In Mobile, Alabama
The city of my families legacy
The legacy started by Caldonia

While eating biscuts with fig jelly