From the Rock Island Argus, July 22, 1913. By Henry Howland.
Henrietta was a maiden with a pair of witching eyes
And her voice was like the sweetest music man has ever heard.
She had all the charms that nature in her gracious mood supplies—
Henrietta was a beauty, as you doubtless have inferred.
She possessed a gentle manner and a temper that was sweet,
She was always doing something for the ones who needed aid;
Scandal was a thing she never found it pleasing to repeat,
From the path that leads to heaven Henrietta never strayed.
She possessed no taste for ragtime and she ne’er indulged in slang,
Henrietta was artistic from her fingers to her toes;
Sweetest ecstasies were given to her hearers when she sang,
She was free from affectation and was not inclined to pose.
She respected age, believing that the old could be sublime,
And instead of reading novels she dipped into classic lore;
She could neatly darn a stocking or construct a witty rhyme,
And she wasn’t always thinking of the pretty things she wore.
Do not think and do not say that Henrietta was a myth,
Do not say that one so perfect never on this earth was known;
Henrietta lives and answers to the name of Mrs. Smith;
I’ve described her as Smith saw her ere he claimed her for his own.