Frank Poland – Lyrics & Music: My Mom’s life story has something that can’t be manufactured: a real life with real imperfections, real hardship, real love, and remarkable endurance. A quilting metaphor fits her beautifully because her life truly was made from pieces—some given to her, some she chose, and some she did not choose.
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My Tribute to Mom
Born in the Depression, when hard times filled the land,
Clara came as baby nine, by God’s unseen hand.
Her mother left this world before she knew Mom’s name,
And childhood’s missing mother left a wound that came.
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A doctor and his family wished to make the child their own,
But Clara’s father would not give the little girl a home.
So with her father she would ride the railroad tracks,
In boxcars through the countryside, unable to give back.
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She begged along the way for food, a child without a home,
Learning far too early what it meant to walk alone.
Yet through those years of hardship, her young heart carried on,
Though much of her childhood was forever lost and gone.
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Sister Kate opened up her home when Clara reached her teens,
A crowded house with children, but a home filling her dreams.
Then babysitting in a place called Poland Hollow came,
And next door lived a young man—Frank Poland was his name.
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Two hearts began to beat as young hearts sometimes do,
And love began to blossom, tender, strong, and true.
But marriage laws stood in the way of love they hoped to share,
So they boarded a bus for Georgia, leaving all behind them there.
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With another couple traveling, they headed down the road,
To Ringgold, Georgia, where the legal burden eased its load.
Two couples left that morning, and four came back as two,
With wedding vows and happy hearts, beginning lives anew.
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In Poland Hollow they built their home upon the family land,
And Clara held the household with a strong, steady hand.
Frank worked at Burlington Mills in Harriman each day,
While Clara cared for family in her quiet country way.
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Five years into their marriage, Frank heard a higher call,
A call to preach the Gospel, and he answered to it all.
Clara never sought the ministry or claimed that call as hers,
But stood beside her husband through his ministry’s concerns.
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He became an ordained minister and pastored churches near,
And Clara walked beside him through each and every year.
Four children came to bless them, three sons and one dear girl,
And Clara embraced her family within her changing world.
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In nineteen fifty-eight, another change came near,
Burlington moved Frank southward to a new assignment there.
To Scottsboro, Alabama, their family made its way,
While Frank worked and preached, Clara fulfilled each day.
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But Clara carried worries from a childhood hard and bare,
She often feared what others thought and how they might compare.
Without a mother’s pattern, she had learned to stand alone,
And raising four young children brought a struggle of her own.
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She guarded them and watched them, protecting family name,
For being a minister’s wife brought expectations all the same.
Sometimes her protection kept her children sheltered tight,
But underneath the guarding lived a mother’s love and fright.
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She knew what it was like to have no safety near,
So she built walls around her children, protecting them from fear.
Her methods were not perfect, and some choices left their mark,
But love was in the center, even when the path was dark.
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She learned the art of sewing, with needle, thread, and care,
And fashioned lovely garments with a seamstress’s flair.
She taught her daughter every skill her hands had come to know,
And watched that daughter master what she taught her long ago.
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Then came the quilting parties, where neighborhood women met,
They lowered frames from ceilings and began to sew and fret.
They talked for hours together while their needles crossed the thread,
And beautiful quilts emerged from pieces overhead.
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Then came a mother’s nightmare, a wound too deep to name,
Her youngest son was lost in an accident as the bad news came.
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Then thirty-six years of marriage suddenly was through,
And Clara lost her husband, the man she loved and knew.
Frank from Poland Hollow had gone from her embrace,
And sorrow left another thread woven into place.
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And later came her daughter’s illness, prolonged and hard to bear,
Until another cherished thread was taken from her care.
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Husband, son, and daughter—three losses to endure,
Yet somehow Clara carried on, though nothing could restore.
She entered public working life, though she’d never worked before,
And with her oldest son’s assistance, she carried even more.
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Eventually she sold the home where so many years had passed,
And her oldest son stepped forward to guide her to the last.
For twenty-four years he helped her navigate life’s changing way,
Keeping close beside her through the passing of each day.
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For four years she lived within her oldest son’s home,
Then he found a nearby place so she would not be alone.
A subsidized home was found where he could still be near,
To help her with ordinary struggles of each day and year.
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But age will turn the pages, and health will change the road,
Clara’s journey brought her other son to help bear the load.
She moved to Georgia when her strength began to fade,
And there the son gave comfort as best he could each day.
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Three months within his home, then greater care was needed,
And to a local nursing home, her final chapter proceeded.
There Clara lived until she reached her ninety-eighth year,
Her long life slowly ending, her earthly journey clear.
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Ninety-eight years of living, of sorrow, love, and pain,
Sunshine mixed with shadows and loss mixed with gain.
From Depression-era childhood to the woman she became,
Each thread became a portion of the tapestry she claimed.
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A mother without a mother learned to mother in her way,
A woman raised in hardship learned to face another day.
She made beautiful things from fabric, needle, thread, and care,
And stitched together pieces that became a quilt to share.
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Perhaps she knew more deeply than most of us can see,
That life is made of fragments, patches and pieces joined in unity.
The pieces may seem broken, the colors may seem wrong,
But somehow when they’re woven, they make the pattern strong.
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Her life was not a picture painted perfectly and bright,
It carried shades of sorrow as well as rays of light.
But every thread belonged there, every piece became her own,
And every season helped to make the woman she had grown.
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Now Clara rests in Scottsboro, her earthly journey through,
Beside her husband and her daughter, where family memories grew.
The hands that once held needles now rest forever still,
The voice that carried burdens has found its final hill.
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The railroad tracks are silent where a little girl once roamed,
The lonely child who traveled now has finally found her home.
The fears that followed Clara have vanished with the years,
The tears have lost their sorrow, the memories remain dear.
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The tapestry is finished; the final stitch is done,
The colors have been gathered, the weaving now is spun.
No thread can now be added, no pattern can be changed,
But all the pieces together show a life beautifully arranged.
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So let us not remember Clara only for the pain,
But for the love she carried through the sunshine and the rain.
Remember how she carried on when life became unfair,
Remember how she loved her own and tried her best to care.
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For every life is woven with threads we cannot choose,
With victories and heartaches, with gains and things we lose.
And when our own life’s tapestry is finally complete,
May those who follow after find the pattern bittersweet.
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For Clara’s life reminds us that broken things can blend,
That sorrow has a purpose when we reach the journey’s end.
A life need not be perfect to leave a pattern true,
It only needs to have been lived with love the best we knew.
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So rest now, Clara Poland, your earthly work is done,
Your tapestry lies finished beneath the setting sun.
The little girl of boxcars became a woman strong,
And ninety-eight years of life became your lasting song.
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