A poem hidden for almost sixty years

Many People Talk of Denbigh

Many people talk of Denbigh,
Talk about the Denbigh people,
Talk about the girls and boat rides,
On the moonlit Warwick River,
And the pine trees, stately pine trees,
How they grow along the River,
On the banks of the blue Warwick.
How they tell each other secrets,
As the breeze blows lightly through them,
Sighing as the moonlight strikes them,
Sighing as do dreaming lovers.

Other things they hear of Denbigh,
Such as Literary Meetings
With their sad and solemn moments,
With their glad and joyful moments,
And the treats that often follow.
At the little dingy brick place,
At Curb Club, or Brandon tea room,
Sometimes ice cream, sometimes Tiny,
Or hot chocolate and hamburgers,
Anything that strikes the fancy,
Of the youths and maids of Denbigh,
Or the younger ones of Denbigh.

In the marshland there dwells a maiden,
Dwells a fair and lovely maiden,
And her skin is like a snowflake
Perfect in its petal smoothness.
And the blush of this fair maiden
Is a simile of roses,
Roses with the dew still gleaming
In the freshness of the morning,
and her lovers who would woo her,
(They are as many as the stars are)
Dare not for her careful father
Stern and set in his ideas
Will not let them woo daughter,
Woo his dashing daring daughter.

Seventeen now is the maiden
And her father is relenting,
Taking back his cruel orders,
Has allowed the witty coolie
From the distant Shenandoah
Home to bring her from the meeting,
From the Literary Meeting. 

Now at last Lorraine is happy,
Singing as she does her duty,
Does the tasks that goes with homework,
Or the tasks that goes with baking,
In the little Garnand bakeshop.
All the while Lorraine is thinking,
Dreaming of her towhead coolie,
And at night her dreams are haunted,
By the darts of Coolie's cupid.
While the moon shines in her window,
And she's sleeping, sweetly sleeping.
  -- Ellen Peachey

Editor's note: Ellen Peachey wrote "Many People Talk of Denbigh" when she was a teenager in the early 1940's.  Her sister Fannie Oliver showed me the poem recently and I was struck by how well it evoked a time and place.  When I read the poem to Ellen on the phone I found she hadn't thought about if for a very long time.  The poem has the sensibilities and innocence of a teenager, albeit one with a literary flair.  I thank Ellen for resisting any urge she may have had to revise her work and for letting me publish it as written (with minor changes in punctuation).  Ellen informed me that "Lorraine" and the events depicted are fictionalized and are not about herself.  The photo above shows Alice Ford in front of the Literary Hall. (Photo courtesy of Bob Schaefer, photographer unknown).

Turning Point
A Break of Fever

by June Weber

In December of 1946, when I was 26 years old, Levi and I with our two boys, Richard 7 and Ken 3, left the day after Christmas for two weeks in Florida. My sister, Frances Burkholder, went with us.
We had a great time, but on the last two days coming back Frances and I were headachy and experiencing some chills and fever. We laughed and joked about how we must have gotten too much sun at the beaches.
The day after we were back I emptied the suitcases and did the laundry, but I felt tired and ill. I felt as if I were moving in slow motion like a film that is drastically slowed down. Next morning I was too sick to get up.
We thought that I must have malaria, but tests at Riverside Hospital showed Typhoid Fever! The doctor said they had no medication that was effective; the only thing was good nursing care. He sent me home.
Our home on Menchville Road was turned into a hospital with nurses helping. Frances had the fever too. She was in one room and I was in another. Mama took the two boys, and we had nurses around the clock.
The local Board of Health was very alarmed - there had not been a case of Typhoid Fever in this area for 20 years. They asked if we had any idea where we might have picked up the germs. Typhoid has an incubation period of 14 days. I felt that I could pinpoint exactly where we got it.
The first day of our trip we had stopped in North Carolina for gas. There was a small restaurant called Robert*s Grill. Levi and the boys were not hungry, but Frances and I went there to get coffee and sandwiches. As we sat waiting for the food, we began to see evidence that the place was sort of dirty and we left without finishing our sandwiches.
At every other place we stopped during the trip, everyone ate.
The Health Board sent a man to NC to check out Robert*s Grill and found a waitress who was a typhoid carrier, so they shut the place down.
Our house was quarantined. Dr. Lawford came every day. Frances and I were very sick with raging fevers as high as 106° and alternate teeth-shattering chills.
Nurses attended us day and night. Hannah Brenneman, Clara Hertzler, Mabel Gross, Edna Brunk Hertzler, and Mary Hostetter Conner. Wonderful nurses.
Frances had a fairly light case and began to get well. I became weaker and weaker. One day Dr. Lawford warned the nurses that the crisis was near - probably that night. Crisis time is the lowest point - either you die or you begin to recover.
All of this was very hard for Levi who had seen his sister, Helen Weber, go through all of these stages of the disease before she died.
Many people had been praying for our recovery. That night my life hung in the balance.
Unknown to us (and to each other) two women of the church (the church across the road from the present building) were wakened at about midnight with an urgent call from the Lord to "pray for June Weber." They immediately got out of bed, fell to their knees, and wrestled for my life until they had a feeling of peace.
At the house on Menchville Road I fell into a gentle sleep and began to recover.
Weeks later each of the women told me about that time of praying for my life.
At that stage of my life I had a poor self-image and had struggled with self-worth. I was amazed when I heard what they had been called to do and how faithfully they had done it.
I experienced a burst of astonishment and joy when I realized God cares for me!
God cares for ME! That became very precious to me, a sort of benediction on my life.
You*re wondering who the women were, and I*m going to tell you: Martha Shenk Palmer Weaver and Ruth Brunk (Mrs. Truman Brunk).
I*ve always been glad they didn*t just murmur a short prayer, roll over, and go back to sleep. They got out of bed, down on their knees on the cold floor, and prayed. It was January!
A couple of years ago when I was visiting Ruth, I thanked her again for those prayers. At this point in her life, she could not remember it - but I will never forget it!


(Adapted from a talk given November 14, 1999 at the Warwick River Homecoming).