Will the Real Mother Goose Please Stand Up?

We never stop missing our mothers. Mine has been gone for five years and I still think of her daily.
But brothers help fill the gap our deceased parents leave. Siblings confirm our childhood years as reality, despite their misty memory.

One such memory is a set of Childcraft volumes that we children read and referenced. Seeing them now elicits a warm wave of security, joy and repose. For my father read them to me at bedtime. I repeatedly perused them to occupy myself when TV was not in our house.

So, on a recent Los Angeles visit to see my brother, I spied the old volumes in our guest bedroom. The bindings flashed before me in their burnt orange color, frayed spine bindings and whimsical illustrations.

Opening it, all the familiar pages met my eyes. But missing was the poetry volume that held:

Hush-A-Bye, Baby

What Does the Bee Do?

Pease Porridge Hot

Jack Be Nimble

Hickory, Dickory, Dock

Three Blind Mice

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater

The Old Woman In The Shoe

And a favorite, Eletelephony 

"I'm missing Volume 1," brother Pete said. "I think I loaned it to you so you could read it to April when she was little."

That was a long time ago. I'd kept it for over thirty years, but not on purpose. The childhood excuses echoed back through our Stanton home halls. It wasn't my fault! I didn't mean to! I forgot! I didn't know I had it! Lame, lame. So I happily said, "I'll return it as soon as I get home".

One might wonder, "Why did he get the set  anyway, and not me?" I don't think the item was any part of our mother's will, but the little sister in me submitted without question to my big brother.

So, today I am putting it in a padded envelope wrapped in wrinkled tissue paper and sending it to my  brother with this letter:

Dear Pete,

I'm reading the inner flap of the Childcraft, Volume 1 before sending it to you. I notice that the editors of this Mother Goose and Nursery Rhymes were all PHD's from the likes of Vassar, Stanford, Peabody and Columbia. Impressive, I think. 

   Then I wondered, who is Mother Goose? No one author is associated with her. She is a legendary character, with a scant connection to an 8th Century noblewoman named Bertha, who embodies the county wife/mother personae. She also is likened to a fairy bird mother (hence she's shown riding a flying goose), who told enchanting stories to children. Your wife, Terry probably knows better of her origins since she is a teacher. 

   The first collection of Mother Goose stories was published in 1667, with an earlier form in 1637, as "Tales from the Past With Morals." Over the centuries, it has transformed into many varieties, one of which we happily read as children in the Childcraft series. Glad to send the missing volume back to its 'family'.

Much love, 

Your sister

Mother Goose is the symbol of wisdom and comfort the child in all of us craves.

A real person? I think not. But those of us who were reared by her rhymes will always associate her with the nurture and love of our own, very real mothers.