Appears in "The Landmark" 29 March 1913 Grady County, Oklahoma

TRIBUTE TO MRS. FLORENCE B. CROFFORD

Mrs. Crofford died in Tucumcari, New Mexico, March 4, 1913, where she spent several years for her health. Previous to that time she had lived at Ninnekah, Little Rush and lately Chickasha. She was born in Mississippi, her father being a wealthy planter – a descendant of the Huegonots; was a faithful wife and mother and leaves a husband, three sons and one daughter; was well educated, a woman of talent and culture, which she used for the highest good; and untiring church and club worker, a regular contributor to several prominent magazines, and won quite a name writing of Indian affairs. Mrs. Crofford won a prize offered by a New York paper for a short story, the scenes of which were laid at Ninnekah. Two years ago she published a booklet of poems called “Songs of the Southwest.” She was an energetic and ambitious woman. The days were too short and her strength too weak for all that she wished to accomplish. While she dreamed dreams she was not an idle dreamer, but worked to make her dreams a reality. If, as some hold, that we progress from one world to another, we believe that she will reach the seventh Heaven, for her wagon was always hitched to a star. We love to think that her lofty ideals are realized, that her ship is safe in port, and that she is free from the storms and trials of life where, with angels and archangels, she will have an eternity of joy. The annexed verse is from her little poem “Ship of Dreams.”

“And with you close beside
We will drift out with the tide
From that beach where wraiths abide.

We will live the dreams that died,
Live it on the sunlit slopes
Of the land of Phantom Hopes.

Bear us thither, Ship of Dreams.”