Violet's Poetry, Harmonic Eve's Favorites

My mother Violet would visit me, her mother Bebe, and her stepfather Bernie at this home in Maryland in the 1930's and early 1940's. That's when she was living in Washington, D.C. or traveling over the U.S. to places such as Florida, California and New York. Then when I was about twelve, she left me in Maryland and she moved to California without me. I did not see her again until I had graduated from high school and moved to California myself. During my childhood she often wrote poetry, but I did not see her own poems until many years later. She did, however, help me to appreciate poetry by reading then-well-known poems to me. I felt quite sorry for "Poor Jonathan Bing" who went to visit the king, and each time he went to see the king, he forgot a different important item which he should have remembered to bring. My grandmother Bebe used to say that I would forget my head if it were not attached. That is some comfort to me now whenever I forget anything, so I know it is not just old age now. Violet gave me one of the greatest gifts a parent could give a child, just by reading to me. No, she was not always around, but when she was, either staying at Balbern or allowing me to visit her at her apartment in Washington, D.C., my times with my mother Violet became a treasured memory. (Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve)

Eve's Note of April 2, 2008: Today I searched through a drawer where I thought I had last seen the first poem I ever wrote. I did not find it. As a child, I loved hearing poetry as read by Violet to me, or as we read in school and repeated together in choral reading. I did not attempt to write any myself until I was given the assignment as a teenager, and I wrote a narrative poem. Before that, instead of writing poetry, my creativity included writing music, or drawing pictures, or making clay sculptures. When I looked in the drawer hoping to find my first poem, I found instead some of Violet's old notes she had written to herself. To me she was a far better person than her own description of herself here.

Violet was born on May 16, 1904. She wrote a note to herself in 1949, commenting on her early adulthood. (See below.)

Violet's Note to Herself, Written October 17, 1949:

Old diaries reveal that I was always happier and healthier when on a full time work schedule. The vacations were creative and healthful, but the periods of unemployment were not, nor were periods of part-time or extra work. I was a chronic worrier, a fickle jade, an indiscreet flirt, an inconsistent faddist, diet crank, experimenter, and theorizer. I was a rebel against conventions, against religions, against many moral codes, and against authority of any kind that was not innate in the individual soul. What a walking bundle of confused ideas I was! I thought I was a good woman, I strove always for the essence of truth within things and experiences, and for upliftment of the ideals and for increasing knowledge of the world and ways of the people in it. I knew that what I wanted most was a home and husband and child, but I was not quite sure enough of any man I met. I did not try to discipline myself in accordance with things I had been taught, but in accordance with things as I thought they ought to be. I believed in grace, beauty, and individual freedom. (The above was written in 1949 by Violet, Mother of Eve Adam.)

From Violet's Letter to Her Mother Bebe

This letter was written from the West Coast of the United States and sent to the East Coast, mailed in an envelope with a three cent stamp and a postmark of May 16, 1933. That was the day Violet turned 29 years old. The next day I would have become nine months more than my one year of age. I was still in California with Violet and anyone she could find to babysit me while she worked. I believe the letter came back to Violet after Bebe died, and I know it came to me when Violet died.

Violet Writes:

I know, have made quite certain, that I haven't got what it takes to make a successful nurse, teacher, or social service worker. Those are the only professions you advise me to train for. Librarian, I might make the grade, but can't you see that temperamentally, emotionally, physically, I am not suited to battle with the conditions in the other three professions. I have so little aggressiveness and not the least desire to acquire any. I can not play politics with competitors and authorities. The topsy turviness and mismanagement of social service work sickens me. What could I do to help express the best ideas in me in that work? For you it might have been the very thing, but don't try forever to project your ambitions through your children. (Somehow I believe Phyllis Eve will be what you wished I had been -- she has so much vitality, is so extroverted and sociable. yet there are dreams in her too.)

Farther Down in Violet's Letter to Bebe:

I do not see why I could not write and learn to write for publication.

From a Later Paragraph:

Wouldn't mind your showing me a few instances of my immature thinking. If it is in being too idealistic mentally and emotionally to live up to in the physical, or as you put it, having my head in the clouds, there is no hope of change. I may be in this world, but I do not love it enough to bring the ideals down to its measurements. The Ideal is the real. If they give me a spot of the world not too dirty, I'd like to help scrub it up. Help make it see light.

Violet Ends the Letter Thus:

Now I use you as a safety valve for my explosive thoughts. Forgive its explosiveness for I love you more than ever and hope we can some day understand each other. There is no more definite news just now. Love, Vi.

Namesake: On January first of 2008, Sarah, granddaughter of Violet's daughter Eve, gave birth to a baby girl. The new baby was named Violet Alexandra, after her own great-great-grandmother, the Violet who was the author of the poems in this website. The middle name was chosen by the baby's father to show his appreciation for the composer Alexander Scriabin. The Violet who was born in 1904 was quite musical, with a beautiful singing voice and a gift for writing poetry. With music on both her mother's and her father's sides of the family, it is quite likely that the Baby Violet, born in 2008, will also be musical and poetic.

Harmonic Eve's Guidelines: As I wrote on my other websites, I want you to feel free to quote my own writing without the necessity of contacting me. Enjoy my poems and my music, create links to them and/or make copies as you wish, being sure to give me credit as author. I believe you can understand the reasons that you must not claim to have written them or otherwise claim ownership of them. Do not charge money for copies or change the wording of the poems or lyrics. Similar guidelines apply also to the items written by "Violet, Mother of Eve Adam" and by Violet's mother Bebe ("Eve's orphan grandmother.") I have copyright ownership of their writings as well as my own. May the writing of the descendants of Justice Violet help you find and keep love in your heart always.

Eve Adam, a.k.a. Harmonic Eve