Your grandpa, when he was around, he did the best he could Drank up many a job and home until he left for good Your grandma sewed and kept her store and worked for every dime Anxious for the six of us, and old before her time. I helped to raise the little ones until I was fourteen Then off to London I did go to cook and serve and clean I wrote my mother every week and sent her most my pay I'll tell you, Grace, what she told me the day I went away:
Daughter, you must never say what you will not do You cannot know what bitter things the Lord may ask of you. The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God's hand The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.
My first love was a vicar, for a time I wore his ring But soon enough I was to learn the changes time will bring The next was Walter Parsons, working on the railroad I married him all on the quick before my belly showed. And when men came from Canada to sign up engineers Your father turned his vision west and brushed aside my fears Took you and Lil and Doddy from the home I gave you birth And left your sister Olive in the hallowed Bristol earth.
Daughter, you must never say where you will not go You might not sleep where you awoke, or harvest what you sow The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God's hand The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.
The winters and the highways were far longer than I dreamed And working on the Grand Trunk wasn't all that it had seemed He fed the engine fire on his breath and blood and arm At last he had to give it up, and turned his hand to farm. With Jack and Ena babies yet, we hoped for a new start But that first cropping season took the last strength of his heart I know that you remember, Grace, that dry September day I sent you children to the barn and watched him where he lay.
Daughter, you must never say what you cannot bear The good Lord counts your every tear, and each lock of your hair The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God's hand The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.
The Belleville ladies told me that I must do what I can "Put those children in a home, and find another man." My sister too was widowed by the bloody fields of France She brought her child to join us and to find another chance. The lawyers and the merchants would not hear a mother's woes We were living on Welsh Rabbit, and salvaging old clothes I took in travelling preachers and I rented out the soil And I held this house together with my daily prayers and toil.
Daughter, you must never say what you will not do You cannot know what bitter things the Lord may ask of you The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God's hand The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.
This is in the voice of my grandmother, Marion Parsons nee Uetze, speaking to her daughter my Aunt Grace; Jack in verse 3 was my father. In Grace's memoirs, (untitled, 1992), she passes on what her mother said about her childhood, emigration in 1914, and widowhood, and concludes by saying:
"She told me years later never to say I would not do something because she said you never know what is before you and what you may be called to do."
Hi Marion, Your songs and music are incredible. I am blown away by your talent. I especially like this song. It moved me to shivers. It is such a universal song about women. My maternal grandmother put my mother "in a home" when she divorced my grandfather. She was British to her dying day and had married an American man. She remarried and fetched my mother. My stepgrandad was a jewel who lived with us until his death. My grandmother died in our home on my 13th birthday. This song reminded me of my own family. Thank you for your incredible gift!