Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Sept. 24, 2012
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More on Moore Today is September 24. As far as I can tell, nothing of any note ever happened on that date. There were several famous people who were scheduled to have been born on September 24, but all of them rearranged their itineraries for more popular dates. Some waited until December, just to be on the safe side. One such notable person was Julia A. Moore, the “Sweet Singer of Michigan,” who was not actually a singer at all, but only a very bad poet. She was scheduled to be born on September 24, 1847, at 4:30 in the afternoon, weather permitting. Several family members and news reporters gathered at her parents' farmhouse in northern Kent County, Michigan to greet the new poet, but she did not arrive. Poets are notoriously undependable. Everyone eventually went home, and when baby Julia finally arrived more than two months later, on December 1, pen and parchment in hand, there was no one there to greet her. Not even her mother. The doctor recorded her weight at just over twenty-six pounds, and noted that she had a full set of teeth. I realize that I've written about Julia Moore before, but someone has to do it, and I have accepted the challenge once again. Since she was born only a few miles from my birthplace, I feel I owe her that much. Julia was one of Mark Twain's favorites, and he did not have many favorite poets. In 1901 he gave a moving speech about a poet friend of his in San Francisco. Twain's friend was despondent because he could not find a job where he could practice his poetry. The poet wanted to commit suicide, and Twain encouraged him. By which I mean that since Twain was also out of work at the time, he saw an opportunity to be the first on hand to report the story and sell it to the newspapers. It was an interesting speech, recalling how he'd helped his suicidal friend, initially in an attempt to drown the fellow in the Pacific, and eventually by pawning a life jacket they found washed up on the beach and purchasing a derringer. When the pawnbroker learned that the gun was to be used by a poet to commit suicide, he was more than happy to help out. The situation resolved itself when the poet put the gun to his temple and hesitated for a bit longer than necessary, until Twain finally said “Oh, go ahead and pull the trigger,” and he did. The bullet, which Twain described as about the size of a “hickory nut,” went straight through, and removed the poetic portion of the poet's brain. From that day on, he said, the man was an upright, useful citizen who never committed poetry again. But fortunately, Julia Moore didn't have access to a derringer, and wrote poetry well into her seventies. Okay, so maybe she didn't write poetry “well,” but she did write it into her seventies. Mainly, she wrote obituary poetry, about local Grand Rapids area folks who died tragically. Many of the deaths she celebrated were the deaths of children, who seemed to drop like flies in her poetry. Mark Twain was so fond of Mrs. Moore, that he modeled his Huckleberry Finn character Emmeline Grangerford after her. Huck described Emmeline, but might just as well have been talking about Julia Moore, when he said: “Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on hand with her 'tribute' before he was cold. ... The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the undertaker–the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was Whistler ... she warn't ever the same, after that; she never complained, but she kind of pined away and did not live long. Poor thing.” After reciting Emmeline's tribute, “Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd.,” about a boy who fell down a well and drowned, Huck added: “If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by-and-by.” But Twain knew full well what she could a done, because Julia Moore outlived him by several years. Julia wrote several poems about natural and manmade disasters, and about youngsters who died by falling into fits, falling off rafts, contracting smallpox and coughing their lungs out while traveling from California to Michigan in locomotive smoking cars. Humorist Bill Nye, commenting on her Sentimental Song Book, said that it was so full of death and destruction that she was “worse than a Gatling gun.” She never spared the details. Like, for example, her “tribute” to little Hiram Helsel, which included the lines: He was a small boy of his age, When he was five years or so Was shocked by lightning while at play And it caused him not to grow. Etc. This poem also contained a rather uncomplimentary remark about little Hiram's stepmother, who “did not use him well.” The remark may have been unnecessary, but “well” rhymed with “tell,” so Julia stuck it in there. And it was apparently published in the local paper that way, too. Another poem, this one a tribute to Little Libbie, told how the Lord called Libbie home mid-meal in those days before the Heimlich Maneuver: While eating dinner, this dear little child Was choked on a piece of beef. Doctors came, tried their skill awhile, But none could bring relief. One reviewer, in the Rochester Democrat, said “If Julia A. Moore would kindly deign to shed some of her poetry on our humble grave, we should be but too glad to go out and shoot ourselves tomorrow.” Julia A. Moore was scheduled to die at 8 p.m. on July 2, 1920 at the Kent County Fairgrounds. By June 2, over 1,400 tickets had already been sold. But on June 5 of that year she was found at the bottom of the well at her Manton farmhouse, clutching a grappling hook and a length of soggy twine. Authorities believed that she fell down that well trying to retrieve a cat. Rumors that a neighbor lady gave her a helpful shove were unfounded. Julia was working on her own epitaph at the time, but never finished it due to difficulties finding a rhyme for apoplexy. |