Welcome to Poetically Yours. This segment highlights poets from northern Illinois. Today’s episode features Carol Obertubbesing.
Obertubbesing grew up in Union City, New Jersey and saw the New York skyline every day of her life until she left. In 1969, she became part of the first coed class at Princeton University. She said that was the defining event of her life.
The Princeton Alumni Weekly published an article she wrote about her experience as one of the first women to attend Princeton. She returned to Princeton almost every year for reunions and other events and now serves as Regional Vice President for the Class of 1973. In 2019, she organized a national conference held in Chicago to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Undergraduate Coeducation at Princeton. Last year, the University gave her the Distinguished Service to Princeton Award.
Obertubbesing has served on the Board of the Woodstock Folk Festival since 1993.
She’s worked in public tv and radio. She was the director of Outreach at WGBH, and at PBS she was the associate director of the Elementary and Secondary Service. She said she is an avid listener of public radio.
This poem was written in honor of America250. It’s called “WHO ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING?”
We are the people who dream
We are the people who strive
We try to create the “City Upon a Hill”
We try to move ever upward
Some of us are indigenous to this land
Some of us came from foreign places
We want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
But we seek it in many different ways
Today we honor those who showed us the way
Those who gave their lives for these ideals
But we know their work is not done
We come together in promise and in action
We join together today in words and song
So, our clarion call for democracy can be heard near and far
Like the shot heard round the world 250 years ago
A people, united, devoted to liberty and justice for all
