Introduction
Born: November 20, 1836, South Wilbraham (now Hampden), Massachusetts.
Died: December 21, 1912, Hampden, Massachusetts.
Buried: Old Hampden Cemetery, Hampden, Massachusetts.
Born: November 20, 1836, South Wilbraham (now Hampden), Massachusetts.
Died: December 21, 1912, Hampden, Massachusetts.
Buried: Old Hampden Cemetery, Hampden, Massachusetts.
Lucy was the daughter of Daniel Davis Chaffee and Sarah Flynt Morris, and wife of Lucius David Alden (married 1890).
She spent a year at the Monson Academy (now the Wilbraham & Monson Academy), 20 years teaching school, and three years as a school board member in her native town.
Her poems and prose appeared in newspapers of Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; and Minneapolis, Minnesota; in several Sunday school song books, and in quarterly and monthly journals.
In Joseph’s shop at Nazareth
A youthful workman stands,
And plies the hammer, saw, and plane
With deft and willing hands.
He smells the breath of fragrant woods,
Whose clippings strew the floor.
Of cedar sweet from Lebanon,
Of fir and sycamore.
He splits the sturdy grain apart—
Perhaps a Bashan oak—
And shapes the bow, and shaves the pine,
To make the ox a yoke.
I seem to find Him thinking then,
Of His approaching quest
For weary souls, to bid them come
And take His yoke of rest.
And while He measures beam and board,
Or hews the heavy sill,
To frame the boat, or build the house,
I ween He thinketh still
About the wise man’s rock-held home
That stood unmoved for long,
Though rains had beaten, winds had blown.
And floods been high and strong.
Our daily toil is Heaven-blest;
To plow and pen and broom,
And every useful industry,
The Father giveth room.
From Lucy Morris Chaffee Alden
Songs of Hope, 1909