“Several of my ancestors practiced their handwriting, letters and numbers in this book of poetry written about 1827. The book is pretty crumbly, but I love having it. I can picture the long voyage with boredom setting in and not much to write on or write with, for that matter. My file name says clover, but I am thinking it is a shamrock pressed in the pages.

The book was given to me by an eccentric uncle of mine in about 1978 or so, when my children and I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The book face page said it was written at the Dawn of the Reformation in Ireland. I checked around, and was told that would be about 1827. So the book was about 150 years old when I got it, and about 20 years old when children wrote in it. There were two children who belonged to my direct lineage, and then five of their first cousins with them, who had been orphaned. Imagine taking 7 children across the ocean on about a 3 month voyage. My direct ancestors are the couple that brought the 7 children over from Ireland, via Liverpool, England, to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, and then up the Mississippi River to the area of Rockport and Preemption, Mercer County, Illinois, USA.. They were very brave or very desperate or both.”

That is indeed a shamrock, the symbol of Ireland :)