{"id":3613,"date":"2026-01-12T19:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T19:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/?p=3613"},"modified":"2026-01-12T19:09:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T19:09:21","slug":"stories-from-the-crowd-marys-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/?p=3613","title":{"rendered":"Stories from the Crowd: Mary&#8217;s Words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">by Mary Morrison<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mama, again<br \/><br \/>Likely she had her reasons,<br \/>The poverty of a deep depression,<br \/>The terror of a World War.<br \/>But she was a hard woman to take,<br \/>With no room on her lap,<br \/>And only a cigarette and\u00a0<br \/>Threats from her fundamentalist\u00a0<br \/>God on her lips.<br \/>Never name a granddaughter of mine<br \/>After her.<br \/>Let the memory of her mothering<br \/>Die with me. \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My Own Name<br \/><br \/>I want a name of my own.<br \/>I don&#8217;t want to be Mrs. Anybody,\u00a0<br \/>Or even Mary, John&#8217;s dottir.<br \/>When I was young, I couldn&#8217;t wait<br \/>To have someone else&#8217;s name<br \/>But it never fit me.<br \/>Now I want my own name,<br \/>A name that in the end says,<br \/>&#8220;She didn&#8217;t need to belong to anyone.<br \/>She was enough &#8212; just by herself.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Excerpt From<br \/>Stories from the Crowd<br \/>Scott Ballew<br \/>This material may be protected by copyright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Mary Morrison Mama, again Likely she had her reasons,The poverty of a deep depression,The terror of a World War.But she was a hard woman to take,With no room on her lap,And only a cigarette and\u00a0Threats from her fundamentalist\u00a0God on her lips.Never name a granddaughter of mineAfter her.Let the memory of her motheringDie with me. \u201d My Own Name I want a name of my own.I don&#8217;t want to be Mrs. Anybody,\u00a0Or even Mary, John&#8217;s dottir.When I was young, I couldn&#8217;t waitTo have someone else&#8217;s nameBut it never fit me.Now I want my own name,A name that in the end says,&#8220;She didn&#8217;t need to belong to anyone.She was enough &#8212; just by herself.&#8221; Excerpt FromStories from the CrowdScott BallewThis material may be protected by copyright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3613\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottballew.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}