The French fairy tales concerning Mother Goose were written by a man, Charles Perrault, in 1697. But America had the real live genuine female Mother Goose.
America's Mother Goose, before she found feathery fame, was just plain old Elizabeth Foster who was born in Charleston, Massachusetts in 1665. At the age of 27, Miss Foster was wed. Her husband Isaac Goose, whose original last name was Vergoose, was fifty-five years of age at the time of their wedding. Mr. Goose, a Boston widower, was actually Father Goose, ten times over.
Not only did Elizabeth, as the new Mrs. Goose, find herself the stepmother of ten little Gooses (in bird talk they would be ten little goslings), she presented Mr. Goose, over a period of appropriate years, with 6 additional Goose children. Quite a flock the Goose family became and, in mountain-folk jargon, they must have been quite a site to gaggle at.
Although two of the newer Goose children died in infancy, one daughter grew up to wed a fugitive printer from England. You might say he flew the coop and fled to America. The English bridegroom who married into the American Goose family was Thomas Fleet.
Evidently Elizabeth Goose's son-in-law Thomas Fleet was "fleet of foot" because his escape from England to America was ever lasting and productive.
In time, the joining of Miss Goose and Mr. Fleet produced 7 little Fleets to get underfoot as parents and grandparents sailed through their days. But not all was smooth sailing.
American Mother Goose continued.
Recommended Reading About Other Historical American Women:
A Kansas woman keeps both snakes and rabbits from stealing her strawberries in an unusual way.
How Women Came to be on the Plains.
This one is part myth and part truth.
