Zetilla Kane

 (“Pea-picker’s Child dies” the shallow

   headlines read, speaking of Joe and Jennie

   Bell’s seventh child and only daughter…”)

 

She was a pea-picker’s child.

After six boys, their only girl,

learning her first steps and how to talk.

When she came down with Whooping,

it ravished her flesh-and her fight;

and never again did she even try to walk.

Her mom and dad were labeled pea-pickers,

cheap hard labor to earn little money, and

they were always travelling the road.

Her parents worked tirelessly day in

And day out, yet, still couldn’t afford

to buy the produce they sowed.

Three cots and a gasoline container

as a makeshift stove were inside a

tent that her family called home.

They had had to sell their belongings

and go in search of work,

left destitute and forced to roam.

Zetilla had never been in a house

until she was taken to the undertaker’s.

Not yet two, on the road, she had died;

just as she had been born on the road.  At her

funeral, hoping the hymn’s words were true,

her momma’s voice magnified…

♫We’ll never pay rent for our mansion

Our taxes will never come due

Our garments will never grow threadbare

But always be faceless and new.
We’ll never be hungry or thirsty,
Nor languish in poverty there,
For all the rich bounties of Heaven
His sanctified children will share♫

**posted for OLN at dVerse and Poetry Jam.  In researching the above photo-taken by Dorthea Lange in 1936-and the Great Depression, I came across the story here of Zetilla Kane told by her tearful daddy...and just had to write about it.  What a horrible time it must have been living in the 30's.  Although, I guess we may not be too far from it, if our leaders aren't careful.  **The hymn in the poem is titled "No Disappointment in Heaven" and was written in 1914 by Frederick Martin Lehman.