“Scholars do not agree about the identity of the original Mother Goose, the legendary creator of nursery rhymes that have endured though the centuries. But the real American Mother Goose was a Boston grandmother named Elizabeth Foster Goose, whose son-in-law, Thomas Fleet, ‘was almost driven distracted’ by her singing, rhyming and storytelling until, in 1719, he turned her creations into a profit by publishing them in a pamphlet, Mother Goose Melodies. This launched his mother-in-law into immortality. 

“Mother Goose” was born Elizabeth Foster in Charleston, Massachusetts, in 1655. When she was 27 she married Isaac Goose (originally Vergoose) and took over the mothering of the 55-year-old widower’s ten children. She bore Goose six additional children.

One of her daughters, also named Elizabeth, married Thomas Fleet, an exiled printed from England who had a shop on Boston’s Pudding Lane. Grandmother Elizabeth often minded the couples’ seven children and entertained them endlessly with her stories in rhyme. 

“Mother Goose” died in Boston in 1757 at the age of 92 and was buried in the Old Granary Burying Ground. 

I’m sure you recognize this:  “Old mother Hubbard went to her cupboard to give her poor dog a bone. When she got there, the cupboard was bare and so the poor dog had none.”

(Big thanks to the July 1981 issue of American History Illustrated  for this editorial bit penned by Peggy Robbins.) 

I keep a ongoing list of thought-provoking quotes and thoughts. And I find them everywhere!

From Alex Haley, author of Roots:

* When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand, nor can your hand pick up anything.

* When you search enough for something bad, you’re just likeable to find something good.

From Frank Herbert, author of Dune:

*Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.

* To attempt to see the light without knowing darkness cannot be.

* Everything must take its course.

* Every experience carries its lesson.

* Greatness is a transitory experience.

*Respect for truth comes close to being the basis for morality.

From Jane Goodall:

* “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and your have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

From Geraldine Brooks, author of March:

*”There is only one thing to do when we fall and that is to get up and go on with the life that is set in front of us and try to do the good of which we are capable for the people who come into our path.”

I do hope you enjoyed these thoughts from my mind.