A Life of Poetry
and Song
by Penny Blaker Ruiz
From Boone Your County Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 1, November,
1974
(This charming magazine was published to record the gentle goings-ons in Boone
County, Indiana. This issue includes an ad describing the difference between
LPs and the new "tape deck." It reminds us that a tape deck should not
be used to replace an FM tuner. "only used IN ADDITION to same.")
"Living is poetry,
Beauty is song--
The rhythm is captured
By swinging along;
The high notes, the low notes,
Not one of the wrong,
For living is poetry,
Beauty is song' . . ."
The above poem by Esther Kem Thomas, perhaps
best captures her love of words and of life--for the rural Lebanon homemaker,
mother and author has built a career around a busy family life.
As a renowned authoress and lecturer, Mrs. Thomas has traveled
to nearly every town and city in Indiana and to many in Illinois and other neighboring
states.
Small and dark of hair and eyes, Mrs. Thomas is full of sparkle
and humor and emotion. She has channeled all of her enthusiasm for living into
a series of poems, many of which are included in four volumes of poetry, "By the
Way . . ." I, II, III, and IV. The four books were published by the Old Swimmin'
Hole Press of Greenfield and were copyrighted 1942, 1944, 1945, and 1946. [sic]
Mrs. Thomas explains that for years she has expressed her emotions
to her family and life in little verses. Suddenly there were enough verses for
one book and then another. She laughs and says, "Writing is a lot like garbage,
you just keep writing and it keeps accumulating and finally you have to do something
with it."
Mrs. Thomas says she didn't plan a career but that it "just
happened." She was graduated from high school in 1928. She had some business education
and worked for a time as a secretary.
She says, "I've written as long as I can remember."
In 1929 she was married to Arnold Thomas and in a few years
was the mother of a son and a daughter. The little ones provided thousands of
ideas for poems and she was "rhyming words to catch-up experiences." She notes
that mothers of today have the same feelings, the same frustrations and the same
joys and hopes that she knew when her children were babes.
"Everyday experiences are never out-of-date." Those experiences
captured in words and rhythm started a new horizon. In 1942 Mrs. Thomas was asked
to read some of her poetry for a Rotary Club program in New Castle. Since that
time she has visited nearly every city in Indiana, speaking for Kiwanis, Lions,
civic administrations, Business and Professional Women, home extension organizations,
Farm Bureau, church auxiliary groups and many many more.
She has contributed poems to Indiana newspapers including the
Indianapolis News and has had work published in Ideals.
Before his retirement, Mr. Thomas traveled some in his work
and the family lived in such towns as New Castle, Terre Haute, Louisville, Kentucky,
Cadiz and finally settled to a peaceful wooded area north of Lebanon.
The moves strengthened family bonds and added new ideas for
Mrs. Thomas. They also offered many acquaintances. She attributes much of her
success to a friend she met while living in New Castle. Barton Rees Pogue had
a show called "Wayside Windows" for a radio station in Cincinnati. He offered
encouragement and advice and when she expressed a desire to entertain with her
poems, he said, "Well, do it."
Authors seldom know just who read their words or how they are
appreciated. But Mrs. Thomas is proud to relate a few experiences she has had.
One day she received a telegram from Wisconsin asking for permission to use one
of her poems, "My Mother's Hands" for a mother of the year program. She granted
the request. She has also had requests from a missionary in Africa to, use "Old
Rag Dolly" for a children's paper.
During World War II, she was contacted by a man whose son was
in the service. The boy had left his bike in the basement and it was engulfed
in cobwebs. The man asked Mrs. Thomas to write a poem about the boy and the bike.
She did. The father later sent a picture of the bike with the poem superimposed
on it along with an image of the soldier. Mrs. Thomas still has that framed picture.
The poem titled, "His Bike", begins, "He treasured it then. I cherish it now;
He's far away, and yet, somehow while its tires are flat, its seat is worn, its
corner dusty and forlorn. I can stand there a moment and felt once again His little
boy presence .... "
Mr. Thomas is proud of his wife and of her career and he is
quick to show his affection and his pride. He says, "We've been married 45 years.
She's gone with me in all my moves. She'd take her work along and then through
her work and the church we'd make many friends.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas also remember a summer when the children
were young and they traveled across the United States. Mrs. Thomas held a typewriter
on her lap to record thoughts and sights. There was also a trip taken with an
Army tent strapped to the top of the car. Mr. Thomas recalls taking the tent down
in the morning, driving all day and then putting
the tent up at night.
Mrs. Thomas likes to read novels and poetry alike, but says
she has no favorite author. She also likes to make grape jelly from grapes grown
at home. One poem "Jelly Making" proclaims, "And now I know it's fall--the kitchen
reeks with scent of grapes, whose silvery, purple cheeks have yielded up -their
succulence, and show their jellied wine in glasses, row on row;..."
And still Mrs. Thomas states, "if I am ever a poet it will
be an accident. I just write to say something."
And so Mrs. Thomas writes, as in "Opportunity," "A day was
born-- As shapeless as a lump of clay and gray; I did not see that it was good
and if I had not made of it all that I could, I never would have known it was
My day!"
Her writing may be an accident but, is a source of joy and
inspiration to many.
