Written last night after I returned from the Tioga Co, picnic in Lakeland
where Betty Davis Phillips, Pat Booth and I collaborated briefly as Campbell
Cousins! Wish everyone of us CAMPBELL COUSINS might reunite at this another year!
Marylyn
"Kissin' Cousins?"
I met a new "cousin" at reunion today
Who says we're not really related in any big way
For her own great-grandmother had married her brother
And their kids, we find, married
Into another family of hers and mine!
Their kids were orphaned and fostered by more
Of the cousins who lived in the farmhouse next door.
And the minister's family took pity on five
Of their kids who had barely been kept alive
On apples and corn from the orchard and field
Our original ancestors' harvest did yield.
And these little ones were reared in the usual way
Of the churchgoing folk with each churchgoing day.
But they "bundled" together and procreated more
And the generations now seemed to count up to four.
So this new cousin defines us for all folks to know
That we might have been called "cousins" long, long ago,
But, in fact, we must be remembered one from the other
As great-grand step-cousins of their father & mother!
ML Dewey Adams
2/20/2004