Effie Waller Smith: In 1900, educational opportunities were very poor for both blacks and whites in most of eastern Kentucky. Black students in Pike County had to leave the mountains to advance beyond the eighth grade. Yet, there was a young black woman named Effie Waller writing poems to Bryant and Longfellow, writing lyrical ballads and other forms of verse.

Both of her parents were former slaves who provided all of their children a degree of education far beyond the norm. Waller’s mother supplied the love and care that insulated the children from the harsh realities of racism.

Effie Waller Smith married a deputy sheriff who was murdered in the line of duty, and when she moved out of Kentucky she left little record of her existence. What remains are three volumes of verse, three short stories, and a few poems she wrote for literary magazines. They testify to her desires and ambitions as a creative writer, and yet they remain largely unacknowledged. In 1906, Effie Waller Smith died in total obscurity.

--David Deskins, Clerk of the Court, Pike County

Heredity

By Effie Smith, in Rosemary and Pansies, 1909

Our dead forefathers, mighty though they be,
For all their power still leave our spirits free;
Though on our paths their shadows far are thrown,
The life that each man liveth is his own.

Time stands like some schoolmaster old and stern,
And calls each human being in his turn
To write his task upon life's blackboard space;
Death's fingers then the finished work erase,
And the next pupil's letters take its place.

That he who wrote before thee labored well
Concerns thee not: thy work for thee must tell;
'Tis naught to thee if others' tasks were ill:
Though has thy chance and canst improve it still.
From all thy fathers' glory and their guilt
The board for thee is clean: write what thou wilt!

The Patchwork Quilt

By Effie Smith, in Rosemary and Pansies, 1909

In an ancient window seat,
Where the breeze of morning beat
'Gainst her face, demure and sweet,
Sat a girl of long ago,
With her sunny head bent low
Where her fingers flitted white
Through a maze of patchwork bright.

Wondrous hues the rare quilt bears!
All the clothes the household wears
By their fragments may be traced
In that bright mosaic placed:
Pieces given by friend and neighbor,
Blended by her curious labor
With the grandame's gown of gray,
And the silken bonnet gay
That the baby's head hath crowned,
In the quaint design are found.

Did she aught suspect or dream,
As she sewed each dainty seam,
That a haunted thing she wrought?
That each linsey scrap was fraught
With some tender memory,
Which, in distant years to be,
Would lost hopes and loves recall,
When her eyes should on it fall?

Years have passed, and with their grace
Gentler made her gentle face;
Brilliant still the fabrics shine
Of the quilt's antique design,
As she folds it, soft and warm,
Round a fair child's sleeping form.
Lustrous is her lifted gaze
As with half-voiced words she prays
That the bright head on that quilt
May not bow in shame or guilt,
And the little feet below
Darksome paths may never know.

Yet again the morning shines
On the patch-work's squares and lines;
Dull and dim its colors show,
But more dim the eyes that glow,
Wandering with a dreamy glance
O'er the ancient quilt's expanse;
Worn its textures are and frayed,
But the hands upon them laid,
Creased with toils of many a year,
Still more worn and old appear.

But what hands, long-loved and dead,
Do those faded fingers, spread
O'er those faded fabrics, meet
In reunion fond and sweet!

What past scenes of tenderness
And of joy that none may guess,
Called back by the patchwork old,
Do those darkening eyes behold!
Lo, the deathless past comes near!
From the silence whisper clear
Long-hushed tones, and, changing not,
Forms and faces unforgot
In their old-time grace and bloom
Shine from out the deepening gloom.

Click here to get informations in german!