ABOUT 1937
Front Row:  Hazel Faughn Freeman
Second Row:  "Miss Annie" Faughn, her niece - Ivy Sills,
Letha Faughn Allen, Eliza Faughn Malone, Alpha Lou Faughn Cain
Third Row:  Beulah Mitchell Faughn, Adolphus Faughn, Bessie Henry Faughn,
Mary Faughn Morris, Francis Marion Faughn

The summer days come hurrying
Down through the years of change
As sights and smells of yesterday
Bring nostalgia into range.

Of Sundays 'round the table
Of evenings in the swing
Twilight breezes waft softly by
With fragrance on the wing.

A fragrance of purple lilacs
From an ancient bush of blooms
Drifting through the open windows
Ever lingering in the rooms.

Today, when I smell the lilacs
I travel back in time
To the time when Mammy's lilacs
and the families seemed to bind.

Come heady dreams and memories
Of photos drawn in my mind
Of actual pictures beside that bush
Ages frozen forever in time.

There are Mammy and Aunt Jodie,
As girls, the years go back
Yet, there they stand, in Sunday best
Young and happy by the old lilac.

Though years have come and years have gone,
 Our young ones are now grown old
As pieces of Mammy's lilac bush
Bloom in yards across the globe.

As families do, we share our lives
Like branches from the lilac shrub
Spreading wings and watching family growth
As our branches expand with love.

Our thanks to mammy who started the lilac
Who knows?  Maybe from her own kin.
And like cuttings from the lilac bush
Families sprout and grow with no end.

Jean Clark
February 2001©