Martha Worlton Bushman was the wife of Martin Benjamin Bushman. This tribute was read at her funeral. She died 20 Jan 1938 in Lehi, Utah.
Martha Worlton Bushman
You are the kind of mother, it just seems to me
That God, our Creator, intended mothers to be.
You are the kind of mother, we are proud to own.
We understand your life more fully now that we are grown.
What caused the deep wrinkles that furrow your brow?
We placed some of them there that we would erase now.
You banished our childish sorrow and soothed our pain.
You reigned like a queen over your small domain.
There are no words that can tell, none can express
The sweet joy we have known through your gentleness.
Sweet mother, the appreciation you’d want us to show
Is to live the right way; the way you taught us to go.
You have reared sons & daughters of the law abiding kind.
You have reared sons and daughters with a spiritual mind.
Each day as you set in the old arm chair
We thank God that your life he doth so long spare.
On a perilous journey you crossed the ocean’s wild waves
Like the pilgrim’s religious freedom you mightily craved.
You trudged across the dreary plains, Ah, so many a weary day.
But faith in your Redeemer sustained you all the way.
You think old age has robbed you of beauty once so fair,
But to us who know and love you your beauty was never more rare.
Let’s live for the day when we’ll meet on the golden shore.
Joy can only be full when parting comes no more.
A crown of glory you have earned and will wear,
But we’ll miss you when you’re gone from the old arm chair.
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Received from Laural Bushman 14 July 2019:
You posted a poem that was written to honor Martha Worlton Bushman on her 84th Birthday by Mrs. Eugene Bushman. I would like to tell you the rest of the story. My Grandmother Leah Bushman loved to write poetry and it was always her dream to have something she wrote published. She wrote that poem at the request of the family. That particular poem, Leah carried a copy around in her purse and would recite it to anyone who would listen, up until the day she died. At the last nursing home she lived in, in Orem, some students from the Y would come on weekends and entertain the residents. They took her poem and put it to music and even made a few copies on records. She was thrilled. The song was sung at both Leah’s funeral and my father’s. She will be absolutely thrilled to know that her poem is now on world wide internet. An interesting comment; your version has more verses than the copy Leah wrote. Hers stops at the lines, “When you go to your home above, may you find peace and joy and love.”
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