DeGraff has been the subject of poetic literature that captured life at the time of the authors. Below are two well written poems by Agnes Fitzgerald and William E. Henderson that were published in the History of DeGraff, 1850-1950.
DeGraff
By Agnes Fitzgerald
(A toast given at an alumni reception in DeGraff)
Source: History of DeGraff, 1850-1950
This big earth’s a roomy place
When we think of all the space
On the mountains and the hills,
And the valleys, why it thrills
One to ponder. And yet
Where could us folks ever get
Any other place that half
Looks like livin’ `side DeGraff?
Mercy, no there’s not a spot
Anywhere – I don’t care what,
That we’d give this town for, and
That’s just why its hard to stand
When you’re `way and folks’ll tell
`Bout some place THEY like right well,
And you speak up `bout DeGraff
And the folks’ll sort o’ laugh
Haint you all observed their way?
S’pose some one should chance to say
Something `bout some place he’s been –
Paris, maybe, or Berlin –
And he speaks about the view,
All so grand, and right out you
Say, “Oh, that’s like in DeGraff.”
Don’t you mind the witherin’ laugh.
Really seems some right smart folks
Take things like as if they’re jokes
That you tell about this town.
And there’s people you set down
As havin’ common sense,
And they say, (mean no offense),
That there is a bigger half
To the world than just DeGraff.
Those car shops we WERE to get –
Biggest that the state had yet –
Some folks said it wasn’t so,
Said it like we didn’t know.
But we smiled (so’s not to cry),
And we passed that topic by,
Some folks like to think all’s chaff
That’s a blowin’ toward DeGraff.
Once some people talked about
Some great mountain they’d seen out
In the west. And said that there
It rose grandly in the air
Miles and miles. And then, when I
Longed to see one just as high,
Said a man with scornful laugh,
“Is there none up in DeGraff?”
Some times from false pride, I `spose,
When you’re starting to disclose
Some new features of the place
Known to none of all the race,
‘Cept just us – sometimes you’ll say,
Just in sort of off-hand way,
“In the town where I used to live,”
That don’t some how seem to give
Foreigners the wish to laugh
Like the plain words, “In DeGraff.”
Guess perhaps we know what’s wrong;
Some folks’ greed is pretty strong.
And they want the earth, And we
Say, “Take all but this town. See?”
No, we will not give it up,
But we’ll take a brimming cup,
And its first, last drop, we’ll quaff
To our little town, DeGraff.
When I Was But A Lad
By William E. Henderson
Source: History of DeGraff, 1850-1950
I’m thinking now of my old home town,
Some sixty years ago.
When the town was small and the railroad new,
And the trains were somewhat slow.
My first ride to the county seat
Was with my dear old dad.
We sat in a bench in a box car,
When I was just a lad.
The station then was the old warehouse
Where Aaron Mitchell handled grain.
He also sold the traveling folks
Their tickets for the train.
On the topmost floor of the old warehouse
An oyster supper once was had.
To get there dad and mother rode one horse,
When I was just a lad.
The grist mill, oh, that wonderful place
With Canby, Wolfe, and Shriver,
The log mill, too, ten yoke of oxen
With big Jim Ryan, the driver.
And Dr. Gilcrest rode his mule
O’er roads both good and bad;
For folks got sick, as they do now,
When I was just a lad.
And Matt Wolfe’s store was a famous place;
The Shoemakers were in business too
And in their day were hustling folks
And always glad to wait on you.
And Billy White and Dennis Warner
Were the tailors that we had
To fix us up in Sunday clothes,
When I was just a lad.
And Uncle Billy Boggs, a Democrat,
Who rode a big white charger.
Few party men were as big as he,
And none were any larger.
And old Squire Smith, our legal light
And only one we had.
He was our local preacher, too,
When I was but a lad.
The little school house on the bank
Of that famous old mill race.
The knowledge that came out of it
Can’t be described for want of space.
And Jesse Neer would read to us
The news, both good and bad.
Newspapers then were very scarce
When I was but a lad.
When soldiers rode off to the war,
And with them went my dad.
And how it thrilled us all when joy
When Sherman took Savannah
And old DeGraff was then my home –
And now its southern Indiana.
