Edna published two books of her poetry in the mid-1960s.
All told there are about 120 poems. She wrote about life around her. Her family, her friends, her travels, her memories of the Depression, WWII, and the Cold War all make appearances in her writing. Friends would ask her to write something for special occasions like weddings, birthdays, newborns and graduations. Sometimes she would write a poem to cheer up a sick friend. There’s humor, reflection, sadness, and she often writes about her faith.
In the early 1960s, Edna’s daughter Kate bought a Wilcox-Gay tape recorder to capture Edna’s voice. Because as much fun as the poems are to read, hearing Edna recite them was better.
As you might imagine, those recordings weren’t optimal. Lots of background noise and distortion. Not easy to edit. So when cassette recorders came along…
Kate bought one and tasked her son Joe with getting his Grandma on tape. In the 90s, 23 of those recordings were digitized and distributed to family members.
The original recording quality wasn’t good. Fortunately, by 2022 the software has gotten smarter and can clean up some of those original recordings.
Most of the poems have their own page. The shorter poems are on the list page but not categorized.
If we have a recording of Edna reading it, there’s a link to that recording. If not, one of Edna’s grandchildren or great-grandchildren have have volunteered to read it, and there’s a link to that. And some are text only.