Ten Poems for National Poetry Month, Number 8: 'Mended' by Edith Lelean Groves

For the month, the eighth of ten poems

I find interesting, amusing, and/or infuriating.

Verse from Edith Lelean Groves' Everyday Children (Toronto: The Committee in Charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, 1932)

MENDED

          "You've mended my dolly, now please mend me."

               And the sapphire eyes they were dim

          As she showed me her poor bent twisted foot,

               And her queer little mis-shaped limb.

          "My dolly was hurled worse than me,

               For her stuffing came out, and then

          Her foot it came off, Oh, she was a sight!

               But they've made her over again.

          "I think I'm most as important as she,

               Dad calls me his own precious pearl,

          And mummy she cries, for I'm all that they've got,

               That one little onliest girl.

          "I'm awfully tired of braces and things,

               And crutches that weight most a ton,

          I want to run round on my own two feet,

               Like the others and have some fun."

          So early one day they carried her off,

               With never a sigh or a frown,

          To a wonderful children's hospital,

               In the heart of her own home town.

          "Why I think," she said, "this is fairyland!"

               And then she was sure it was Heaven,

          The nurses were kind and the doctors good,

               To this dear little girl just seven.

          And they straightened her mis-shaped twisted foot,

               Though the time it seemed very long,

          She never grumbled but cheered the rest up

               Right bravely with chatter and song.

          And this all has a fairy tale ending,

               For gladness and joy and laughter

          Came into the life of the little girl,

               Happy she lived ever after.

Related posts:

Hurray for the Crippled Children's Bus!

What About the Children?

What About the Children?

Monday's post on Edith Lelean Groves was running long, so I never did get to the drawings that feature in her Everyday Children. Numbering thirty-five in total, they were one reason I'd bought the book in the first place.

Or maybe not.

I was more interested that they'd been selected by Arthur Lismer, and had been produced by the children who'd attended his Saturday class at the Art Gallery of Toronto.

(Those with a keen eye will spot The West Wind by Lismer's friend Tom Thompson.)

The pictures vary wildly and in terms of style and ability. Sadly, not one is credited.

Most have nothing to do with the poems they accompany. One of the few exceptions is this illustration, which appears to have been inspired by "My Upstairs Brother".

There are drawings of dogs, dolls, policemen and young toughs. Some are similar in terms of subject.

Art school survivors will see evidence of either a bad teacher ("Today, children, we will be drawing a girl struggling with a broken umbrella.") or classroom rivalry ("Watch as I put your picture to shame.").

Children, children, Mr Lismer likes both your drawings.

Related post: Hurray for the Crippled Children's Bus!

Hurray for the Crippled Children's Bus!

Everyday Children

Edith Lelean Groves

Toronto: The Committee in Charge of the Edith L. Groves Memorial Fund for Underprivileged Children, 1932

Unearthed during a recent trip to Cambridge, the publisher, "the children of the Saturday classes, Art Gallery of Toronto" and the promise of a biographical sketch by eugenics advocate Helen MacMurchy, CBE, conspired to remove five dollars from my wallet.

Of Edith Lelean Groves, I knew nothing, but was soon set right by Dr MacMurchy, who provides a good amount of detail, beginning with an account of her subject's great-grandfather and his imprisonment during the Napoleonic Wars. I dare say Mrs Groves is a much more admirable figure. She devoted most of her 61 years to the education of children, particularly those we describe today as having "special needs". Nearly a century ago, Mrs Groves fought for their integration into Toronto's public school system. When she succeeded, she turned her attention to providing wheelchair ramps and transportation.

Transportation, Crippled Scholars. Alfred Pearson, 15 April 1926

City of Toronto Archives

Sadly, Mrs Graves wasn't nearly so remarkable as a poet. Everyday Children is everyday poetry. Typical of what was once foisted on young readers, the collection stresses the importance of good manners, study, respect for authority and healthy living:

Still, the reader who sticks with it will find "My Upstairs Brother", about a young girl's relationship with her bedridden older sibling: "His name is Welcome Jack and he's got a twisted back,/ His arms and legs don't seem to want to go." This is followed by "Mended", in which a girl's "queer little mis-shaped limb" is straightened through surgery. These poems and others dealing with "crippled" everyday children are no better, but they do provide interesting and uncommon glimpses of the time.

It's not at all surprising that Everyday Children is forgotten, but what of Mrs Groves? She has no entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia. There was once a school named in her honour, but no more – it's since been renamed Heydon Park Secondary School. Seems no one knows why.

Gray Coach Lines' Crippled Scholars' Service. Alfred Pearson, 20 December 1928.

City of Toronto Archives

Object: A well-bound hardcover printed on very thick paper. My copy lacks the dust jacket by Arthur Lismer – he of the Group of Seven – which the Introduction tells us depicts "little faces of 'Everyday Children' who smile... the result of his gifted pencil."

Access: Everyday Children can be found in seventeen of our universities. Public library users are stuck with a single reference copy housed somewhere in the stacks of the Toronto Public Library. It would seem that this collection of verse enjoyed only one printing. Used copies range from US$15 to US$25, the uppermost price fetching that elusive dust jacket.