Katherine Lee Bates - Vestal Hills Memorial Park - Vestal, NY, USA - Etched in Stone on Waymarking.com

Text on plaque: "America the Beautiful O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountains majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Whose stern impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!"

The rest of the poem

"O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country lov'd
And mercy more than life.
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea. "

Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor, was inspired by going to Pikes Peak. From the Katherine Lee Bates Civil Rights Memorial waymark: "In the summer of 1893, when she was lecturing at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Bates joined a group that took a rough prairie wagonride plus a struggle by mule, followed by an exhausting hike to the top of 14,000 foot-high Pike’s Peak. Overwhelmed by what she saw, Bates scribbled in her notebook all four verses of our unofficial national anthem celebrating America. When published, the poem was an instant hit. Her copyright provided continuing royalties for years."
K.L. Bates lived 1859 - 1929. She graduated from Wellesley College and became a professor there. She had a Boston marriage with Katharine Coman, an economics professor. They wrote "English History as taught by English Poets".

Address: 3997 Old Vestal Road Vestal, NY 13850 Website: [Web Link]

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