The following is an interesting snippet found while looking for information about someone in a newspaper. An image of the piece follows.

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A Mental Family Tree

We were talking in the schoolyard about our family trees,
And Gertrude said hers could be traced to Sir Horatio Freeze;
And Rufe said he’d descended from the governor of a state;
And Louie mentioned ancestors of hers about as great.
While Reggie said his lineage embraced a lord, he knew;
And Nell from her great-great-grandsire obtained her blood so blue;
But neither of the little Smiths could say a single word;
For them to boast their ancient name of course would be absurd.
Then teacher smiling slightly said that she was much inclined
To think that there was such a thing as blue blood of the mind.
That those who studied hard (and here she beamed on Tommy Smith)
Had certainly descended from men of force and pith;
And those who loved to tend the sick and serve the weak and frail
Were morally related to Florence Nightingale.
(Here Jennie Smith blushed to the ears.) And when she saw a youth
(How bright she smiled at Johnny Smith!) who always told the truth
At school, at home, or when he was at work or having fun
She knew him for a relative of General Washington.
But Reggie doesn’t like such talk; he says it seems to throw
So much responsibility upon yourself, you know.

As printed in the Crook County Journal, Prineville, Oregon, 6 November 1902, page 7, column 2. The author’s first name is mostly illegible. Corrections or proper attributions are appreciated.