REVIEW OF A Gilford Offering BY Dr Kelley White MD / REVIEW BY jd collins

A Gilford Offering
By: Dr Kelley White MD
poetry collection
Price: $14.00 incl S&H
Finishing Line Press
P.O. Box 1626
Georgetown, KY 40324

ISBN: 1-932755-58-6


I presume to review Dr. Kelley's "A Gilford Offering." I am no poet. I may fancy myself a historian, but I'm pretty sure no university would dare allow me to teach. Our Society accepts as an axiom democracy has no need of dangerous ideas.

My primary interest in Dr. Kelley's offering is historical, not literary. I believe she has attained something remarkable, almost revolutionary, a glimpse of life in a forgotten era: the North in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, not from a view of its grand scheme and its material accomplishments, but in her skillful recreation of daily life in its wake.

April Morning

Sea Venture

"In his long time he has seen great changes below his hill." (Bricks)

In the Industrial Revolution, New England was the fulcrum. The focus of change was upon New England.

Life in New England was never easy. In agricultural days "our only crop was stone." (Moultonboro) "We helped when the crops were planted and at harvest our small hands were never...enough." (Gilmanton) How grateful we were when we reached the end of harvest. Here were still warm days, most chores done" (Fair Days) It's a time of dislocation. "How I wish once more to see my mother, my sister, the land where I once played in childhood." (Addition)

Early industry brought change, some of it welcome. "With little grief we traded farm for town with much relief." (Moultonboro) "There was good pay for steady workers in the mills" (Gilmanton) "But the days were long there from dawn 'til past dark, danger, noises, machines." (Lowell) "Our small boy runs upstream [to] make a sign to each miller to send the water down." (Hunger's Mill) "The works could as quick whittle a man's arm as a leg, tear a scalp or a shingle...Few men could escape such work with hands whole, with full ten fingers." (Deacon Hunter) Child labor was common. "Our small quick hands were wanted." (Gilmartin) Time itself became a commodity. "The stopped clock may bring again her youth." (Clockworker)

Moby-Dick Gregory Peck plays the sea-hardened captain in the film version of Moby Dick.

Johnny Tremain

Despite her words on the dangers of the new technology, Dr Kelley is primarily concerned with the people not the machinery.

For many, it's a time of loss. "My sister and I lie separated by the husband we shared." (Hannah Hunter) Early deaths in child birth were common in the 19th Century. "Sister, I never thought to lose you...I'll keep your children. I'll keep your house. If I must, your widowed husband, I'll espouse." (Mary Hunter) "I did feel Mother's loss most...I was an angry child...What they forbid, I did. I took much. There was much I had." (Charles)

"If lost, follow water down hill." (Fishers) Indeed, there was also joy and celebration. "The days were far gayer than we admit." (Slates) "We'd go out coasting...in a single sleigh...[down] School House Hill...through forest and clearing spinning...to a stop...the cold mile long trek back to the top." (Winter Pastimes) "I never saw [a still] but one heard fiddle music, laughing, unholy words." (Industry)

Yet the extended family still endured. "Great Auntie...worked weaving at her attic loom...odd faces curious twitches...always true of witches." (Haunts) Other women went their own way. "At the end their wish a single gravestone one word Friends." (Milliners) Some fell to those deadly New England diseases: progress and self improvement. "A spinster...our Connie would not sit idle...she began a work she loved, a library." (Library)

Dislocation enriched some to their detriment. "These riches did belie melancholy...dogs in truth his only company." (Thomas Saltmarsh) Others used wealth productively and encouraged education. "Now our children in school two seasons...greater prosperity with what they learn." (Bricks)

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The link with the past however was fading. "Here we raised flags each Fourth of July on graves of veterans of the Revolution." (Hoty Cemetary) "The bell was forgotten its gleam effaced." (The Union Meeting House) And as difficult as communications were, town meetings echoed a warning of the end of this era. "Here we could learn accounts of national debate...Lincoln and Douglas so far from out state." (Third Week in March)

For strumming a tale of the Industrial North, a paean left unsung, Dr Kelley's work A Gilford Offering deserves to rank with the classic Edgar Lee Masters' Elegies. Anytime the Rebs mourning their loss in the Civil War that followed want to know why they could not beat "pasty face clerks," they ought to read this short collection of poems to find out what Yankee Granite is made of. However the genius of Dr. Kelly in unearthing forgotten graveyards of faces and names long forgotten is careful approximation of their manners and mores as well as the intonation of their language rich in subtlety and deep in wit. We might call them stiff and stultified; they'd simply dismiss us as vulgar.