We Are The Chosen

The poem shown on the right has quite a history behind it. I first read it on the Find-a-Grave website where one of the members had written like this:

My feelings are in each family we are called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe.
Author Unknown

     Yes, yes. I understood that totally! And it was just the thing to add to my Pinterest board, except I needed to know who the author was first.
     My research showed me that dozens of members from cemetery search sites, genealogy search sites, personal genealogy pages, and more were using the poem although most didn't know who had authored the poem.
     A few sites showed the author as "Della M Cumming ca. 1943". (Like I used here)
     Further research uncovered facts that showed Della's original poem was rewritten by her granddaughter Della Joann McGinnis Johnson where she included her own genealogy into her grandmother's poem.  This version was then  edited and reworded by Thomas Dunn.
     I found a copy of the original version on very pretty page over on www.ancestorhunter.com, but was unable to pin it to my Pinterest board from there.
     Therefore, I reformated the lines slightly to fit and you see the result here - worded as Della M Cummin wrote it, presumably in 1943.
     But therein lies another mystery because Della M Cummin is shown on her granddaughters genealogy page as being born in Apr 1942 and dying Apr 2001. If that's the case, then this is the wrong person because she would have been one year old when this poem was written.