Cat Poem by Ethel Maude Colson Shows Her Love

Family historians want more than just vital statistics. Yes, birth, marriage and death dates are important to genealogy – but once you’ve filled your family tree with names and dates, how much do you really know about your ancestors as real people with individual lives?

To get to know your ancestors, you need their stories – and there is no better place to find those stories than in a collection of old newspapers, such as GenealogyBank’s online Historical Newspaper Archives.

Here in the pages of old newspapers, you’ll find your ancestors’ stories in every part of the paper, from news reports to ships’ passenger lists to classified ads. Your ancestor might turn up in a way you never expected, such as a letter to the editor, a recipe submitted in a contest – or a poem.

Here’s a poem published in an 1895 newspaper. Imagine if Ethel Maude Colson was your ancestor, and you knew little about her. Then you find this poem in an old newspaper – and suddenly you know she was a poet, with a heart filled with such love for her cat “Tom” that when he died, she poured her overflowing feelings into verse.

photo of an unidentified woman with her cat
Photo: unidentified woman with her cat. Credit: iStock Photo.

Her opening stanza sets the tone:

Poor Tom is dead, and my sad heart grieves,
And his memory many a thought receives,
And many a tear I shed the day
When Tom was laid in the earth away,
For he was faithful to me, and that
Earns love alike in a man or cat.
And not always those we expect love from
Are one-half so trusty as poor dead Tom.

Her fourth and final stanza sums up her feelings on her “poor dead Tom” beautifully:

They tell me his life for good is o’er,
That I never shall see him or know him more,
But I scarce believe it; the power that made
Him faithful alike in the sun and shade
Will know how we loved each other, and when
My life is ended, I fancy then
We’ll meet, for the law of love is that
Which binds me close to my poor dead cat.

poem Ethel Maude Colson wrote to her cat, Daily Inter Ocean newspaper article 4 August 1895
Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois), 4 August 1895, section 3, page 35

Come take a look today in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives and see what poetic gems you can find.

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