Eleanor's Poetry
From Her Days At Fairmount College
Eleanor Viola Essex is my mother's mother ie. my grandmother. She did not like to be called grandma so we called her Eleanor. She died in 1976. I miss her very much. She was a very special woman who endured much hardship in her life. Eleanor graduated from Fairmount College in 1933. Part of the hardship she had to deal with was being unable to use her legs as a result of suffering from polio at the age of three. Despite this, she defied adversity and graduated from college. I remember that she never thought of herself as handicapped and in fact detested the use of the word as applied to a description of her. She married my grandfather who died at the age I am now, thirty eight. When he died my mother was four years old. She was then a single mom left to raise her daughter alone. My mother says she never talked much of her father she suspects because it was too painful as they were very much in love. However despite this she went on with life and sucessfully raised my mother and was a wonderful grandmother and inspiration to me. The poetry on this web page I discovered in a cedar chest of hers. She was an english literature major and loved poetry. I still have her yearbook from Fairmount College. Presently I am a student at now Wichita State University. During the course of my studies here I have in my various political activities have felt her prescence and inspiration in my soul. I will always love her and miss her till the day I die. These poems are offered as a tribute to her life and memory. In loving memory, her grandson, David Howard Wilkinson.
Links to other sites on the Web
David's Homepage
