Ada Tessibel Peters, born c. 1901 and Ethel Pauline Peters, born c. 1903 – American sisters who were both poets

 With grateful thanks to Historian, Poet and Writer AC Benus* for finding these important poets and their poetry for us

The girls’ parents were Robert E. Peters and his wife Ethel Peters, nee Hughes, and the family lived in Beckley, West Virginia., United States of America.    

"The sisters were known in the poetical world as "The Peters Sisters." The Peters Sisters have had very limited education. Each of them spent one and one half years in high school at the Institute. West Virginia. Their teacher was Prof. Byrd Prillerman."

By William F. Denny from The Introduction to their poetry collection “War poems” by Ada Tessibel Peters and Ethel Pauline Peters (Union publishing Co., Charleston, West Virginia, 1919). 

“PREFACE 

The sole intention of the Authors in writing these poems is to show the Negro's loyalty to the Stars and Stripes, in the war with Germany; and to show  the need of unity of all men in the fight for democracy. The Authors.” From the sisters' WW1 collection “War poems” by Ada Tessibel Peters and Ethel Pauline Peters (Union publishing Co., Charleston, West Virginia, 1919) 

OUR WAR WITH GERMANY. Poem by Ada Tessibel Peters

I. 

America and her Allies are now engaged 

In a war that freedom might live, 

That all nations may not be enslaved 

Giving as all True Americans would give 

Fighting lest Germany's Kaiser should spread 

The spirit of feudalism over the earth, 

That the Sons of Liberty may not be led 

Captives from the land of their birth. 

II. 

While foreign field were strewn with dead 

With folded arms we merely looked on 

'Till the wronged people believed and said 

"They are gamblers, in search of coin." 

We became apoligist for our neutriality 

While an uncivilized war waged on 

Devoid of all principle and morality 

Urged on by brutes in human form. 

III. 

When the country of Belgium was invaded 

And It's inhabitants tortured and slain 

When other defenseless towns were raided 

And mines in neutral waters were lain 

When the smoldering ruins of France we saw 

The home of the world's greatest arts 

Then Humanity forced us into this war 

For America too, must do her part. 

IV. 

The Imperial German Government smiled

When the Sussex, and Lusitania went down 

Unwarningly murdering American lives 

While on peaceful missions bound 

Should not this wicked and hideous crime 

That sent our friends to watery graves 

Help more close our hearts to bind 

And strengthen us on our rugged way?

“War Poems” Pages 9 – 10 

read the remainder of the poem – pages 10 – 15  here https://archive.org/details/warpoems00pete/page/10/mode/2up

PEARLS UNRECOGNIZED  Poem by E. P. Peters.

I.

Oh wandering pilgrims of Virginia, 

Who made you noted men. 

Whom was ever your defender. 

And proved old Glory's friend. 

Was it not back in sixteen 

For slaves of your selfish will. 

When your unfree tongues were still, 

You ignorantly bought pearls unseen, 

For slaves of your selfish will. 

II. 

In vales and on historic hills, 

Where your gallant heroes sleep, 

Once Ethiophians your soil tilled, 

From dawn till sunset peace. 

Raised grain and your cattle fed, 

In your business planned and advised, 

Without place to lay their heads 

Your own pearls unrecognized. 

Your own pearls unrecognised.

III. 

From tobacco made you wealthy, 

Your cruelty was humbly borne 

Slave cooks made you healthy,  

Black boys protected your homes, 

With maimed bodies and chained hands, 

Died to make your sons free, 

Rare gems in a slave land. 

Robbed of rights and liberty. 

From “War Poems” page 48). Read the remainder of the poem on pages 49 - 51 here 

https://archive.org/details/warpoems00pete/page/48/mode/2up

Sources:  Find my Past and 

https://archive.org/stream/warpoems00pete/warpoems00pete_djvu.txt

*AC Benus is the author of a book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations.    ISBN: 978-1657220584

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583

A poem by American poet Lucy Larcom published in "Bystander" Magazine in 1917

 Although the writer of this lovely poem - found for us by Historian Debbie Cameron - was not alive during WW1 - the sentiments in the poem are fitting for WW1 and it was published in "The Bystander" magazine in April 1917 – which is why I have included it here.

Lucy Larcom (March 5, 1824 – April 17, 1893) was an American teacher, poet, and author. 

Lucy was born in Beverley, Massachusetts on 5th March 1824.  Her parents were Benjamin and Lois Larcom.

After the death of Lucy's father, Lucy's Mother went to work in a boarding house in Lowell, where the girls who worked in Lowell's textile mills lived.  Lucy and her siblings found employment in the mills and Lucy wrote about her experiences.

Here is the poem published in "Bystander":

“Do Something” published in The “Bystander”, April 1917 

IF the world seems cool to you,

Kindle fires to warm it!

Let their comfort hide from you

Winters that deform it.

Hearts as frozen as your own

To that radiance gather;

You will soon forget to moan,

"Ah! the cheerless weather!"

If the world's a "vale of tears,"

Smile till rainbows span it;

Breathe the love that life endears --

Clear from clouds to fan it.

Of your gladness lend a gleam

Unto souls that shiver;

Show them how dark sorrow's stream

Blends with hope's bright river.

Lucy Larcom

https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10079926

The "Bystander" was a British weekly tabloid magazine that featured reviews, topical drawings, cartoons, poems and short stories. Published from Fleet Street, it was established in 1903 by George Holt Thomas.

Historian Debbie Cameron is the creator of the Group Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699/

Ella D. Farrar (1866 - 1929) – journalist, writer and poet

With thanks to Debbie Cameron and Michael Day for their research into Ella D. Farrar 

WW1 poem found by Debbie and Biographical details found by Michael Day @bindonlane@mastodon.world@bindonlane

Ella D. Farrar was born in 1866 in Hartlepool, Durham, UK.  Her parents were William Farrar and his wife, Mary Anne Farrar, nee Edwards.   Ella had a sister – Hilda M. Farrar – who was born in 1869.  

On the 1881 Census, we find Ella boarding  - presumably at school – in Reweley House, 7, Welington Square, Oxford St Giles, Headington, Oxfordshire, UK.  It seems Ella may have been a teacher before becoming a journalist and writer.  

On the 1911 Census, Ella is described at a writer and sub-editor for the Amalgamated Press. By 1921, Ella and her sister were living in Hemel Hempstead, Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, UK, where Ella died in 1929. 

The poem was found by Debbie Cameron and posted on her Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699

“Forget-me-Not – A Pictorial Journal for the Home’ ,which began publication in 1891, was one of the many periodicals founded by Alfred Harmsworth. Along with “Answers” (1888) and “Comic Cuts” (1890), “Forget-Me-Not”(1891) was the backbone of what was on its way to becoming the largest publishing empire in the world, the Amalgamated Press. Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror, he was an early developer of popular journalism, and he exercised vast influence over British popular opinion during the Edwardian era. Lord Beaverbrook said he was "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street."

“Forget-Me-Not” was based in London’s Tudor Street, which runs south to the Thames from Fleet Street, with the advertising sold by Greenberg & Co. just up the road at 80 Chancery Lane. The imprint reveals a third address, for “Forget-Me-Not” was printed by The Geraldine Press at 21 Whitefriars St, which runs parallel to Fleet St but nearer the Thames.

Like all the penny magazines, it was a cheap affair though, on newsprint with a greenish cover not unlike “Tit-Bits”, the model for “Answers”, for which Alfred had worked. The masthead page inside described “Forget-Me-Not” as ‘the most useful home paper’ and it carried fashion hints and articles on fancy work and households management, as well as fiction. The best illustrations were saved for the paper patterns that readers had to send for at a shilling or two each. None of the articles or illustrations carried a byline.

Most of the pages carried marketing messages printed at the bottom such as: 'Forget-Me-Not is a great help to young couples in all household matters’; ‘Home, Sweet Home [another Amalgamated title] is published on Fridays – 1d’; ‘Answers is the paper for a railway journey’; and ‘This paper is published every Thursday’. 

Amalgamated Press aimed to have a magazine for all types of readers with three women’s weeklies, the smaller format “Home Chat” making up the trio. 

One of the editors of Forget-Me-Not, a Hungarian called Arkas Sapt, has been credited with developing a new way of publishing several pictures on a spread, a technique that was to be vital in reinvigorating the Daily Mirror as an illustrated paper after its flagging launch.

Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD

https://magforum.wordpress.com/tag/forget-me-not/

Ethel Stonehouse (1888 - 1974) – British poet

With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for finding this wonderful poem written after WW1 by Ethel, and to Philip Michael Tomaselli for additional information about Ethel.

Ethel was born Ethel Raine on 3rd June 1888.  It seems her father may have been Raine, Walter, J.P., M.P. Chairman of J. Raine & Son Ltd., Coal Exporters and Shipbrokers, Sunderland and Newcastle-on-Tyne, but I haven't been able to find that out for certain.  If anyone can help please get in touch.  

During the First World War, Ethel was as “a member of the British Security Service between 1915 and 1920, working in the Military Permit Office, which issued permits for civilians to visit the Military Zone in Northern France (also Egypt and other places under army control). This included a fast track system to allow relatives of soldiers in hospital in France who were dying to visit with the minimum of paperwork (which they had to complete on their way back...).

In 1920, Ethel married Daniel Wilfred Stonehouse (1883 – 1958), who had served in the Royal Garrison Artillery in WW1.  The couple had one son – Maximillian – born in July 1927 and  lived in Cottingham, Haltemprice in 1939.

Ethel died in 1974.

Here is the poem written by Ethel Stonehouse:

"Ave Atque Vale"  (Tr. From Latin Hail and Farewell)

When we have gone our different ways

And idle memory sometimes strays

To dim remember’d wartime days

When women toe’d the line,

We may from out some dusty nook

Produce this little Office book

And open it to take a look

For sake of auld lang syne.

We’ll think of when we had the ’flu,

The days we had to ‘muddle through’,

And all the work we used to do

To snare the wily Hun,

Of times when strafs were in the air

And worried secretaries would tear

Great handfuls of their flowing hair

And swear at everyone.

We’ll think with something like regret

Of all the jolly friends we met;

The jokes that we remember yet

Will once again revive.

Here’s to the book that’s just begun!

May it recall to every one

The jokes and laughter and the fun

We had in M. I. 5.

Sources:  Find my Past, Free BMD and

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ethel-raine-the-untold-story-of-a-woman-who-spied-for-britain-during-the-great-war-10062876.html

Debbie Cameron’s original source:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/guardianwitness-blog/2014/nov/10/-sp-women-first-world-war-readers-stories-photos-memories?fbclid=IwAR2r-30voCS3HqJfw8Lx0YcOCCWvHDSAvZiG5UxFulxNKozlahjijf0kSsk

Here are links to Debbie Cameron’s Facebook Group Remembering British Women in WW1 – The Home Front and Overseas and her Weblog

https://historicalclues.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-family-at-war-and-beyond.html?fbclid=IwAR0HwllMT7VZlloljHWqsuSnb4Jc-L17iHmNGINaun2L7eVTrjDWOhEwAxA

Naomi Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison CBE (1897 – 1999) – British writer and poet

While researching Naomi’s father, John Scott Haldane, for my WW1 commemorative weblog Fascinating Facts of the Great War, I realised that Naomi was a WW1 female poet.  She also served with the British Red Cross during the conflict.   http://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.com/2023/01/john-scott-haldane-1860-1936-british.html

Born Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane on 1st November 1897, Naomi’s parents were John Scott Haldane, a physician, and his wife, Louisa Kathleen, nee Coutts Trotter (1863–1961), daughter of Coutts Trotter FRGS and Harriet Augusta Keatinge. Naomi’s brother was J. B. S. Haldane – who became a scientist.

Naomi was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and was accepted to study at Oxford University by Lady Margaret Hall College.  However, when war broke out Naomi volunteered to serve with the Red Cross and trained as a Probationer at St Thomas, Hospital in 1917. She then served in the Outpatient Ward, Radcliffe Infirmary, followed by six months working mornings at Wingfield House Military Hospital, Trowbridge.

In 1916, Naomi married Gilbert Richard Mitchison -known as Dick - (1894 - 1970) in Oxford and from then on used her married name for her writing. 

British Red Cross WW1 Record Card
for Naomi

Naomi and Dick had seven children. Their four sons were:  Geoffrey (1918–1927), who died of meningitis, Denis (1919–2018), who became a professor of bacteriology, Murdoch (1922–2011), and Avrion (born 1928), who both became professors of zoology. Their three daughters were Lois (born 1926), Valentine (born 1928), and Clemency, who died in 1940, shortly after her birth.

After a long life and having written many books, Naomi died on 11th January 1999.

Naomi Mitchison’s poetry collections were: “The Laburnum Branch” (Jonathan Cape, London, 1926), in which “Green Boughs” was included on pages 59-60, and “The Cleansing of the Knife and Other Poems” (1978).

Here is one  of Naomi's poems:

“Green Boughs”

My young, dear friends are dead,

All my own generation.

Pity a youthless nation,

Pity the girls unwed,

Whose young lovers are dead.

They came from the gates of birth

To boyhood happy and strong,

To a youth of glorious days,

We give them honour and song,

And theirs, theirs is the praise.

But the old inherit the earth.

They knew what was right and wrong,

They were idealists,

Clean minds, my friends, my friends!

Artists and scientists,

Their lives that should have been long!

But everything lovely ends.

They came from college or school,

They did not falter or tire,

But the old, the stupid had rule

Over that eager nation,

And all my own generation

They have cast into the fire.

Sources:

https://wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/hospitals/hospital.php?pid=15554

https://vad.redcross.org.uk/record?rowKey=93221

From The Skipper’s War – written by the Headmaster ‘Skipper’ Lynam about  pupils of the Dragon School, Oxford – February 12th 1916    “Yesterday, our dear young Naomi Haldane was married to Dick Mitchison, a 2nd Lieutenant with the Queen’s Bays. The marriage took place at the Oxford Registry Office on the High Street. Only a few friends (including Aldous Huxley, the editor of the literary magazine, ‘Oxford Poetry’) attended and the austerity of these times restrained them from holding a party.  We, however, celebrated by taking a half-holiday! Naomi has been training as a nurse at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, but recently has been helping with the outpatients at the Radcliffe Infirmary.

It is only ten years since Naomi was performing on the OPS stage here in Romeo & Juliet.  How quickly our children grow up!”

March 12th 1921 by dpdevitt

“Naomi Mitchison nee Haldane 

One worthy Old Dragon: Naomi Mitchison (then Haldane), who qualified for the University of Oxford in 1914, having taken the Oxford higher local examination. She became a member of the Society of Oxford Home Students and was able to take a degree course in science. The outbreak of war in 1914 prevented her from completing the course, however, when she went off to train to become a nurse.”

https://skipperswar.com/2021/03/12/march-12th-1921/

Charles "Skipper" Cotterill Lynam (15 June 1858, Stoke-on-Trent – 27 October 1938) was an English headmaster, yachtsman, poet and author. In 1882 Lynam was appointed assistant master at the Oxford Preparatory School (now called the Dragon School). He became headmaster in 1886 and in 1895 moved the school from Crick Road to Bardwell Road into buildings designed by his father.  The ‘Blue Dragon’ was the name of Lynam’s yuacht. 

Additional Sources:  https://skipperswar.com/tag/naomi-mitchison/

British Red Cross WW1 Records https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Card?sname=Mitchison&id=152585&last=true

https://skipperswar.com/tag/the-blue-dragon/

https://skipperswar.com/

Katharine Tynan (1859 – 1931) – Irish-born poet and writer

 With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron* for finding this information about a poem by Katherine Tynan, (1859–1931) – Irish poet

Katharine Tynan was born on 23rd January 1859 in Clondalkin, Co. Dublin.  Educated at a convent school in Drogheda, Katharine’s early childhood was spent in a thatched farmhouse surrounded by fields and orchards.  Her first poem was published when she was seventeed in a Dublin newspaper.  

In 1884, Katharine went to London for the first time and made friends with the poet Alice Meynell, whose husband, Wilfred, published Katharine’s first collection of poems – “Louise de la Valliere” in 1885.   In 1898, Katharine married Henry Albert Hinkson, a writer and barrister.   Apart from a brief sojourn in Ireland from 1914 until 1919, when her husband was a magistrate in Claremoris, Co. Mayo, the couple lived in England.

Katharine was living in Ireland during the First World War and two of her sons were serving overseas. Her collection “Herb o' Grace: Poems in War- Time” (1918) contained the lyric “The Dream,” which was subtitled “(For My Father).” 

Katharine Tynan was included in the second exhibition of Female Poets of the First World War and is in Volume 2 of “Female Poets of the First World War” – which, apart from other female poets, also contains poetry written by school girls during WW1 and a section on WW1 Knitting, which was kindly supplied by Phil Dawes. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Female-Poets-First-World-War/dp/1909643173/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540990155&sr=1-11

Katharine’s WW1 collections were:

“Collected poems” (Macmillan, London, 1930); “Evensong” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1922); “Flower of youth: poems in wartime” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1915); Herb o’grace: poems in wartime” Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1918); “The Holy War” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1916); “Late songs” (Sidgwick  & Jackson, London, 1917); “Poems – edited and with an introduction by Monk Gibbon (Figgis, Dublin, 1963);  “Selected poems” (Benn, 1931); “Twilight songs” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1927).  She also had poems printed in eighteen WW1 poetry anthologies.

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St/ Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 320  Katharine Tynan Hinkson and the New Witness: "High Summer"; Mrs. Hinkson and the Nation (London): "New Heaven"; "After Jutland," "The Mother," and "At Parting," from “Late  Songs” (Sidgwick & Jackson, London). 

https://archive.org/stream/treasuryofwarpoe00clar/treasuryofwarpoe00clar_djvu.txt

“The Dream”

Autograph manuscript signed, [1917–1918]

“The Dream for my Father”

Over and over again I dream a dream,

I am coming home to you in the starlit gloam;

Long was the day from you and sweet 'twill seem

The day is over and I am coming home.

Then I shall find you as in days long past,

Sitting so quietly in the firelight glow;

'Love,' you will say to me, 'you are come at last.'

Your eyes be glad of me as long ago.

All I have won since then will slip my hold,

Dear love and children, the long years away;

I shall come home to you the girl of old,

Glad to come home to you -- oh, glad to stay!

Often and often I am dreaming yet

Of the firelit window when I've crossed the hill

And I coming home to you from night and wet:

Often and often I am dreaming still.

Over and over again I dream my dream.

Ah, why would it haunt me if it wasn't true?

I am travelling home to you by the last red gleam,

In the quiet evening I am finding you.

* Debbie Cameron’s Facebook Pages and Weblog can be found here:

ttps://historicalclues.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-family-at-war-and-beyond.html?fbclid=IwAR0HwllMT7VZlloljHWqsuSnb4Jc-L17iHmNGINaun2L7eVTrjDWOhEwAxA

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1468972083412699