In the early 1970s, Vicki Spangler, co-owner of Delphine Gallery at 8435 Germantown Ave., was given a poem titled “Wissahickon” from a fine art antique dealer in New Hope, who, in turn, acquired the poem at an auction at Philadelphia’s Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site. Spangler showed it to the Local’s Advertising Sales Representative Leslie Cerf, who sent a photo of it to the paper’s editorial staff.
Somehow, the poem’s origin remained a mystery. Until now.
In 1919, George Imlay Bodine Jr. curated a collection of personal poems and anecdotes in …
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In the early 1970s, Vicki Spangler, co-owner of Delphine Gallery at 8435 Germantown Ave., was given a poem titled “Wissahickon” from a fine art antique dealer in New Hope, who, in turn, acquired the poem at an auction at Philadelphia’s Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site. Spangler showed it to the Local’s Advertising Sales Representative Leslie Cerf, who sent a photo of it to the paper’s editorial staff.
Somehow, the poem’s origin remained a mystery. Until now.
In 1919, George Imlay Bodine Jr. curated a collection of personal poems and anecdotes in a book titled “Above the Mist.” The first piece in that book is a love letter to the Wissahickon Valley — a place where most of Bodine Jr.’s youthful memories were made. The poem illustrates the Wissahickon not just as a valley filled with trees, trails, and pastures, but as a sanctuary that shaped Bodine Jr.’s earliest sense of thrill, wonder, and freedom. Its verses reveal a pastoral view of the valley that still exists today.
Bodine Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1882 to George Imlay Bodine Sr. (1845-1912), managing director of the banking firm Altemus & Co., and Helen Louisa Cornelius Bodine (1850-1907). The family constructed what was called the “Belle-Ayre” residence in Chestnut Hill on what is now Sunset Avenue, extending the residence to West Hampton Road with the construction of a carriage house in 1899. Bodine Jr. spent his days in the valley outside of his backyard — Wissahickon Valley Park.
The carriage house was renovated into a residential dwelling in 1932 and still stands at 100 W. Hampton Rd. Belle-Ayre succumbed to structural deterioration and was demolished in 1945. The Bodine family eventually moved to New Hope.
In his adulthood, Bodine Jr. attended Wesleyan University, graduating in 1906. He worked as a partner in Bodine Sons and Co., until the banking firm folded in 1932. He married Katherine Hare Weeks (1884-1975) in 1908. The couple had four children — Robert, John, Thomas, and Margaret — and remained married for 40 years until Bodine Jr.’s death in 1947 at age 64. Katherine died 28 years later in Lansdale at the age of 90. Bodine Jr., his parents, and siblings are all buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery.
A second edition of the book, published posthumously in 1948 by Bodine’s sister Helen is available on Amazon, and, of course, the real thing still hangs at Delphine, its provenance now revealed.
