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Annie's Mailbox®, March 20
Dear Annie: My son was recently married in a small, private ceremony. For some unknown reason, my mother did not want to attend, but eventually, she and my father decided to show up.
The entire time, my mother acted very rudely toward my son, my in-…Read more.
Annie's Mailbox®, March 19
Dear Annie: My son and his wife have been married 12 years and have two beautiful daughters. But I am terribly concerned about their eating habits. This is doubly difficult, as my daughter-in-law is the boss in this family and thinks she knows …Read more.
Annie's Mailbox®, March 18
Dear Annie: I am a successful and happily married 28-year-old woman. I have a good life, for which I am grateful, except for one thing.
When I was 15, a close family friend 15 years my senior was staying with my family. I considered …Read more.
Annie's Mailbox®, March 17
Dear Annie: I am 28 years old and have lived with the same man for 10 years. We have two beautiful daughters, ages 8 and 4.
Last May, "Rob" and I decided to take an extended vacation. We bought an RV and spent the summer traveling and …Read more.
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Annie's Mailbox®, July 4
Dear Readers: Happy July 4th! Today is a good excuse to enjoy your family and friends, fire up the grill, play baseball, bask in the outdoors, visit a veterans hospital, volunteer at a soup kitchen, display the flag, listen to wonderful music and watch the fireworks. Here's your history lesson for the day. Did you know that the words to the song "America the Beautiful" were written by Katharine Lee Bates and the music was composed by Samuel A. Ward? Katharine Lee Bates was an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. In 1893, when she was 33 years old, Bates took a train trip to Colorado to teach for the summer. She was apparently inspired by the sights she saw along the way, such as the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago ("thine alabaster cities gleam"), the Midwestern wheat fields ("amber fields of grain") and the beautiful view from Pikes Peak ("purple mountain majesties"). She wrote a poem titled "Pikes Peak," and it was first published in a weekly journal called The Congregationalist on July 4, 1895, with the title changed to "America." At that time, it was not sung to any particular tune. She revised the words twice (in 1904 and again in 1913). Samuel A. Ward, a church organist and choirmaster, composed the music in 1882, while he was on the ferry from Coney Island to New York City. He composed the music to go with an existing hymn, "O Mother Dear, Jerusalem," and he called the new tune, "Materna." Legend says he wrote down the musical notation on the shirt cuff of his friend Harry Martin so he wouldn't forget it. Ward's music and Bates' poem were not published together until 1910, and the new combination was titled, "America the Beautiful." The original version included only four verses. Unfortunately, Samuel Ward died in 1903 before he could see his music enshrined as a beloved anthem. Katharine Bates, however, lived until 1929 and saw her patriotic poetry become part of the national lexicon. Here are the words as they are sung today: O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain America! America! God shed your grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea. O beautiful, for pilgrim feet Whose stern, impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw; Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law! O beautiful, for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Till all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine! O beautiful, for patriot dream That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!
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