A Hand-Me-Down Harvest; 'Cause Life is Much Diff'r'nt

<v Speaker>She was shoved into it and <v Speaker>uh she felt totally inadequate when she was first faced with <v Speaker>it. <v Speaker>When you were, she might say, when you were a little boy, do you <v Speaker>remember ever hearing any poem or any <v Speaker>song that had the expression The King's Fair Daughters <v Speaker>or 6 Maidens in White? <v Speaker>I was working at the time, but I was home for lunch when she came and <v Speaker>uh she made the recording by a desk record. <v Speaker>And she sat on my living room floor and my father sat in there ready to sing the song, <v Speaker>and she pulled the threads off from the record <v Speaker>as he sang. <v Speaker>I learned this from my father. <v Speaker>And was he a civil war-. <v Speaker>A civil war veteran. <v Speaker>Yes. <v Speaker>I may not be able to sing all of it. <v Speaker>[singing] I am dying, comrads dying,

<v Speaker>far away from friends and home. <v Speaker>In this rebel den I'm lying <v Speaker>[inaudible singing] all alone. <v Speaker>[singing continues in background] It's difficult to underestimate what Helen Hartnett's <v Speaker>Flanders did. Um this remarkable woman at a time <v Speaker>in 1930 when people were starting to fear that the traditional arts in <v Speaker>New England and Vermont are going to die out. <v Speaker>This woman took it upon herself to spend the next 30 years of her life <v Speaker>going through this area, collecting traditional folk songs, traditional ballads, <v Speaker>anything that she could find the traditional arts. <v Speaker>Collecting these and in the process accumulating some 9000 different items, <v Speaker>whether in collected form or in transcribed form. <v Speaker>That's some significant collection by what I think is a remarkable woman. <v Speaker>[singing]

<v Speaker>Yes. <v Speaker>I think this is a unique collection, largely because of the time <v Speaker>in which it was collected. <v Speaker>The uh the great cultural change that has taken place after World <v Speaker>War 2 had not taken place when Mrs. Landers was was actively working with <v Speaker>Miss [Almy]. And she was able to hit the <v Speaker>back edge, as it were, of a tradition that had gone on pretty much unruffled <v Speaker>for hundreds of years, both in Europe, and then moved over and adjusted itself <v Speaker>to our climate here and and continued on uninterrupted. <v Speaker>After World War Two uh the people who were singing these songs, who were <v Speaker>interested in these songs, and the value of these songs to the people began t- to <v Speaker>dissipate as the people moved away, moved into the cities, uh were overcome with <v Speaker>radio, with television, with movies and all kinds of <v Speaker>extracurricular entertainment. <v Speaker>Uh it was in 1930 that the um Committee on Traditions and Ideals of the Vermont

<v Speaker>Commission on Country Life had asked her to record these folk <v Speaker>songs or to try to find as many as she could, thinking that <v Speaker>there wouldn't be very many. <v Speaker>It was clear after that 1 year collection from which her 1st book is <v Speaker>is a result of that 1st year of collection. <v Speaker>It was clear that there were many, many, many more folk songs that existed out there. <v Speaker>From then on it was uh she took it upon her own self. <v Speaker>It was her own responsibility to go ahead and collect as many as she could find. <v Speaker>Mrs. Flanders daughter, um Elizabeth Flanders, later, Elizabeth Ballard <v Speaker>was a person who did a number of the transcriptions for the first important books, <v Speaker>publications that came out of Mrs. Flanders work and also did some collection, <v Speaker>too and in the 1930s, in the early 1940s. <v Speaker>In addition, of course, to retaining an interest in the Flanders collection up to the <v Speaker>very present. <v Speaker>There are many different types of folk <v Speaker>songs. And I think we have

<v Speaker>to go back to this time <v Speaker>when folk songs were never sung to a [guitar]. <v Speaker>And nobody would have the have the crust <v Speaker>to say they were gonna write a folk song. <v Speaker>As a musicologist, I feel that it's necessary to make a distinction between <v Speaker>a folk song and a popular song. <v Speaker>Bob Dylan or Peter, Paul and Mary or some of the other so-called folk groups <v Speaker>are groups who write popular songs. <v Speaker>It's impossible to compose a folk song. <v Speaker>A folk song is a general term, takes in child ballads, takes into play <v Speaker>party thing it takes in fiddle tunes. <v Speaker>It takes in all sorts and kinds of all sorts and kinds of things. <v Speaker>So long as it's sung, it's by the folk. It's a focus on the child ballad, however, <v Speaker>is a canon of 305 particular songs <v Speaker>that were selected after a good deal of thought and search by Professor

<v Speaker>Child at Harvard many years ago and published in 5 volumes. <v Speaker>At the beginning of the 20th century, it was discovered that these ballads <v Speaker>were not only in England and Scotland, but were in the United States as well. <v Speaker>Um the importance of Mrs. Flanders to all of this is that she's 1 of the 1st <v Speaker>of the scholars, um 1 of the 1st of the collectors <v Speaker>to find that the child ballads also existed in New England. <v Speaker>At the point that she started collecting in 1930, it was not a clear cut case <v Speaker>of the child ballads existing in Professor Child's backyard. <v Speaker>As it were, ironically enough, some of the child ballads probably are <v Speaker>familiar to you in some form or another. <v Speaker>Um Barbree Allen the story of Barbree Allen is 1 that many people know and some <v Speaker>guys or another, Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy? <v Speaker>Billy Boy is a folk tune that is probably derived <v Speaker>from 1 of the child ballads, Robinhood Ballads.

<v Speaker>There are a whole series of of ballads the child collected that have <v Speaker>to do with Robinhood, the legend of Robinhood that we know is passed down to us <v Speaker>in large extent in the child ballads. <v Speaker>Um others that possibly, you know, would be ones like Lord Bateman or Edward <v Speaker>or Farmer's [First Wife]. <v Speaker>[inaudible recording] He learned this ballad from a small boy. <v Speaker>This is recorded September 9, 1945. <v Speaker>[singing] <v Speaker>The Flanders collection is a collection that could be

<v Speaker>um 1 could talk about a number of divisions in the collection. <v Speaker>The thing that's probably most obvious to people who would w- walk into the special <v Speaker>collections room, Middlebury College Library would be the books, some very <v Speaker>old books, uh some old music books and old tune books. <v Speaker>Hymn books would be the things you probably see 1st. <v Speaker>The most important part of the collection would be found in 2 <v Speaker>things. 1 would be the field recordings that Mrs. Flanders made, <v Speaker>1st on wax cylinder recordings later on disc, <v Speaker>both acetate and aluminum and very in in the 1950s, she moved <v Speaker>to tape finally. <v Speaker>This 1st recording machine was nothing less than <v Speaker>the Edison type uh dictaphone, <v Speaker>which had cylindrical records of wax, <v Speaker>and you could plug it into the ignition of

<v Speaker>your car or carry batteries around with you if <v Speaker>the house in which you were going to record did not have <v Speaker>electricity, as many houses in those days did not. <v Speaker>Mrs. Flanders not only collected recorded ballads, but also made transcriptions <v Speaker>of those in addition to finding text and incorporating those <v Speaker>into the collection. This represents a resource that modern day folk <v Speaker>singers can use. <v Speaker>Phillips Berry told her that to <v Speaker>the uh child ballads were always the most exciting <v Speaker>discovery. <v Speaker>But there are things that happened around here that had songs <v Speaker>made about them. <v Speaker>I [inaudible] Fidrych, for instance. <v Speaker>[singing] <v Speaker>As a matter of fact, Margaret MacArthur, the folk singer, very often comes up to the

<v Speaker>Flanders collection, goes to the transcriptions, decides which 1s <v Speaker>she likes, sets them to tunes and records them or performs them around the state and <v Speaker>elsewhere. <v Speaker>The Hartford wreck was a very important wreck, not only to Vermont, but the whole <v Speaker>U.S., because after that happened, they changed the rules. <v Speaker>And the the insurance companies insisted that railroad trains <v Speaker>no longer have little coal stoves in them and swinging kerosene <v Speaker>lanterns because when the train went off onto the ice there in White River <v Speaker>on White River, I should say, it wouldn't have been such a terrible accident <v Speaker>if if these the kerosene hadn't mixed with the coal and caused a terrible fire. <v Speaker>Everyone in White River within earshot, of course, immediately went to help, but the fire <v Speaker>made it too late for a lot of people. <v Speaker>Another thing you have to understand about this era was <v Speaker>that some of the people were dying off without

<v Speaker>having transmitted these songs to their children <v Speaker>and grandchildren. <v Speaker>And the question is, why was this the 1st <v Speaker>generation not to? <v Speaker>The answer is radio. <v Speaker>The uh radio is such an exciting thing <v Speaker>for people in the early 20s <v Speaker>that uh it got to be after awhile <v Speaker>that anything that you didn't hear on radio <v Speaker>wasn't worth hearing. <v Speaker>And so the old folks got pretty <v Speaker>secretive about knowing any songs that weren't on <v Speaker>radio. And the oldest <v Speaker>of them, my mother or George Brown, got

<v Speaker>just in time. <v Speaker>Another part of her success, I'm sure, was the fact that she was <v Speaker>a very um determined person, that is she set a course <v Speaker>of action and she followed through. <v Speaker>She charmed people right and left. <v Speaker>She uh she was a very attractive person physically and uh <v Speaker>in personality. Most often people would say, oh, well, I don't have <v Speaker>anything. And she'd say, do you mind if I come <v Speaker>and uh ask some questions? <v Speaker>No. But I don't think you'll get much. <v Speaker>And then in a family of Myra Daniels <v Speaker>and Elmer George, they were brother and sister, <v Speaker>and uh they had gotten their <v Speaker>songs from the same source. <v Speaker>But living in different towns and

<v Speaker>seeing each other, not quite all the time, the songs <v Speaker>had changed in their minds. <v Speaker>[singing] <v Speaker>The part of the collection that I'm most proud of is the um the

<v Speaker>field recordings. And that to me is the treasure of the collection. <v Speaker>That it's impossible to duplicate that. <v Speaker>Um if she hadn't done that, it would be forever gone. <v Speaker>Everything else in the collection, it would be possible to get some way or another. <v Speaker>But those field recordings are unique. They're invaluable. <v Speaker>[singing] <v Speaker>Old Dan Tucker, which is a song that was in the 1 of the first of the minstrel hits, uh

<v Speaker>is a song that that surfaces a number of different times in the Flanders <v Speaker>collection. Granny Fish is um someone that <v Speaker>that sang a a large number of ballads. <v Speaker>I think Granny Fish had been someone that that uh folk collectors <v Speaker>had known about for performances before Mrs. Flanders found her. <v Speaker>She lived um in New Hampshire, is just across the river, but apparently <v Speaker>could sing for hours and hours and hours. <v Speaker>And also, as a person who loved to perform, she wasn't one of these that you had to to <v Speaker>really get loosened up before she would sing. <v Speaker>She would start singing and sing and sing and sing. [singing] <v Speaker>She just loved the singing.

<v Speaker>She loved to sing by the hour. <v Speaker>I know she did. <v Speaker>It was when I was like say teenager or in my younger <v Speaker>days. That is when it was an enjoyment to me because <v Speaker>uh we didn't have a radio till I was [finally] ready to get married. <v Speaker>We didn't even have lights in the house. <v Speaker>That was her enjoyment, too, to sing to us <v Speaker>by the hour. This is what she done. <v Speaker>And I never remember going to bed at night when she didn't sing to me. <v Speaker>I remember this [singing]. <v Speaker>There <v Speaker>was a lot of neighbors [singing] and the thought of them was much different than they

<v Speaker>[reside] very friendly and we'd so we always was <v Speaker>like a big gang was there at the house and she was always singin' to 'em. <v Speaker>But I think the way life is today, I don't know how much the growing up ones come <v Speaker>or would ever even bother. <v Speaker>Because life is much different. [singing] <v Speaker> <v Speaker>

<v Speaker> <v Speaker>This is Carrie [inaudible] and Mrs. Nelly [Denman]. <v Speaker>Uh [Burrows] sing [along] what they learned in school. <v Speaker>This was recorded for the finest ballad collection. <v Speaker>Middlebury College. Middlebury, Vermont, July 28, 1945. <v Speaker>Children's songs, I think it's safe to say in many, many cases

<v Speaker>are the last residual hang out <v Speaker>or stand out of a much more involved a much longer or much <v Speaker>more realistic song. <v Speaker>Then they have it becomes comic, the career of a ballad seems to <v Speaker>be or a folk song seems to be tragic, melodramatic, comic <v Speaker>and out and gets down to the kids and they use these things <v Speaker>to play games where they're counting out rhymes and so on and uh children's <v Speaker>songs are usually I think songs were much more serious at 1 time. <v Speaker>Some of them have overtones uh of politics <v Speaker>and uh revolution and things of this [nature]. <v Speaker>[singing] <v Speaker>[music playing] The producers of this program would like to thank the following people

<v Speaker>for their participation. <v Speaker>Beatrice Barton, Ines Barton, Ethel George Lewis, <v Speaker>Gertrude Larken Roberts and Nancy Fish Smith, all of whom are relatives <v Speaker>of the musicians who performed for Mrs. Flanders. <v Speaker>And we thank Elizabeth Flanders Ballard, Fran Byrne Flanders, Margaret <v Speaker>McArthur and Carole Moody. <v Speaker>Thanks also to Jennifer Quinn of Middlebury College for her invaluable assistance <v Speaker>in helping to choose the musical material for this program, as well as to <v Speaker>musicologist Dr. Dale Cockrell, folklorist Dr. Horace Beck <v Speaker>and Director of Public Affairs Ron Neith. <v Speaker>All of Middlebury College. <v Speaker>Remote recording engineer for this program was Sam Sanders. <v Speaker>The mixing engineer was Joshua Landis. <v Speaker>This program was produced by Dorothy Ganon and F. <v Speaker>Grimes with Research and assistance by Tony Marsteller and funds <v Speaker>provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. <v Speaker>I'm the executive producer, Betty Smith, and this is a production of Vermont

<v Speaker>Public Radio.