When You Come Back
By Estelle Webb Thomas
Your hat is hanging in the hall
In its accustomed place;
The battered thing that used to crown
Your laughing, boyish face.
Your things are where they used to be
On shelf, in drawer and rack.
We’ve left them so you’ll find them there
When you come back.
The house is full of emptiness,
A sort of waiting strain,
As if the old rooms held their breath
Till you get back again.
Your old dog droops about the yard,
He sadly feels the lack;
But how he’ll joyous bound nd bark
When you come back.
We know they need you over there;
We’re proud to have you go.
But pa and I are lonesome here,
And oh, we miss you so!
But sunny days are just beyond
Whenever clouds hang black,
And oh, ’twill be a happy day
When you come back!
(1918)
“Old rooms holding their breath …” What a touching image.
I started reading it before checking the date. So touching. Very real — I’ve had 2 sons march off to war and am very grateful to have welcomed them both home.
I would love to know if her son made it back home
Sally, here is evidence of her poet’s sensitivity and compassion: Estelle Webb Thomas’s oldest son was born in 1918. This is written from her imagining of her son grown and gone to war, or from her feeling for other parents whose boys were older.
A son born in 1918 would have been just the right age to go to war when the world again descended into madness in the 1940s.
I just went to check on Family Search. The first thing I discovered was that Estelle Webb was my grandmother’s first cousin. And the second was that Estelle’s oldest son, Wayne Russell Hampton Thomas, born in February 1918, died on 11 July 1943. The records on Family Search are far from complete–no place of death is listed, for example. But the only document attached to his page is his army enlistment record. He joined the army on January 6, 1941, 11 months before Pearl Harbor. The record shows that he enlisted “for the Philippine Department.” If he did end up in the Philippines after basic training, he was probably taken prisoner when the Americans surrendered in May 1942.
Oh, man. Thank you, Mark.
I just Googled his full name, hoping to find something about him. The second hit was to this very blog–an entry called “Mormon Child Life–1926” dated April 16, 2018. Four days ago!
My goodness!
Wayne R. Thomas is buried in the Manila American Cemetery. The date of death does not match the Family Search entry, but the name and Army serial number on the search match the record attached to Family Search. Whether he died in August 1942 (the Army record) or July 1943 (the date on Family Search), it’s almost certain that he died as a POW.
Oh, he was the one who hoped the bluebirds would come back to his bird house! I loved that little vignette. What an amazing connection.
He hoped his little birds would come back. His mother may have been remembering that when she wrote the poem.
History and stories are are mostly told as just one event. Ardis, you have taught me to see the whole progression of events that make up lives and relationships.