Show I 1 1 H t 11 WHO WAS WHO Z by louise al comstock 1 t I 1 1 I 1 1 1 M H M I 1 ll all l ali MOTHER GOOSE wrote the famous mother WHO goose nursery rhymes we will never know some of them such as ride a cock horse to banbury cross little jack horner and london bridge Is falling down are obviously of english folk origin others have been borrowed from a famous collection of french folk tales called tales of my aly mother the goose edited in 1097 by charles it Is nevertheless a fact that our own oan country can claim a real mother molher goose through whom hoin these indispensable nonsense ditties were first introduced to the children of america mother Ver goose her grandchildren called tier her her name was elizabeth Ver goose and she made tier her home with her daughter and sonin son in law thomas fleet in boston early in the eighteenth century like many grandmothers she held active if doting sway in tile the fleet nursery and sang her charges to sleep nightly with the well known rhymes thomas fleet was a printer by trade and important as tile the editor of first newspaper the boston news letter recognizing the value of mother Ver Verg gooses noses rhymes he wrote them down and in 1719 1739 published a printed copy which sold and sold well ell at two coppers each elizabeth Ver goose must be given credit as collector not as originator of these poems but in spirit she was fl a real goose whose melodies shall never never die while nurses sing and babies cry |