Genealogy

By Lillian Livingston Woolley

My mother’s eyes were Irish;

My father’s eyes were, too,

And all my lovely sisters

Had eyes of Irish blue.

And when the boys, they came along,

Ah, sure, they did beguile,

For each of them was surely blessed

With a splendid Irish smile.

And proud we were of Irish blood

As pure as shamrock green,

As sturdy an Irish family

As ever could be seen.

And then we joined the Mormon Church—

Ah, surely that was grand!

And with true Irish vigor

We answered each demand.

We kept the Word of Wisdom;

We paid our tithing, too.

We all did every little thing

That we were asked to do.

We did our genealogy

There, duty was all fun.

With joyful pride we studied hard

About each Irish son,

We wrote it on the family chart

(We wrote it all in green);

Each Irish name we added on,

Each fellow, each colleen.

And then there came that frightful day

The shock we had to bear!

Father came home looking pale;

We gathered ’round his chair.

And mother’s Irish eyes were sad;

Father’s eyes were, too.

And sister’s eyes were full of tears

That washed the Irish blue.

My brothers’ splendid Irish smiles

Soon faded all away,

And all our Irish tongues were stilled,

For there was naught to say.

This thing our father told us—

Believe it? We could not!

For in our Irish line he found

Great-grandpa was a Scot!