Claire M. Lennon - Come By Here

 Topic: CRS Version
Slaves on the Georgia Piedmont, where Claire Lennon’s ancestors lived, may have lost more of their African religious heritage than did those who lived on the Sea Islands.  All four people from Monroe and Meriwether counties, who were interviewed by the Federal Writers Project in the middle 1930s, attended white churches before Emancipation. [1]

Alice Hutcheson recalled in Monroe County that “White folkses went in de mornin’ and Niggers atter dinner.” [2]  Lewis Favor remembered in Meriwether County:

“On Sunday all were required to attend the white church in town.  They sat in the back of the church as the white minister preached and directed the following text at them: ‘Don’t steal your master’s chickens or his eggs and your backs won’t be whipped.’  In the afternoon of this same day when the colored minister was allowed to preach the slaves heard this text: ‘Obey your masters and your mistresses and your backs won’t be whipped’.” [3]

Both were raised on plantations with relatively few slaves.  On a larger plantation in Meriwether County, Charlie King said:

“On Sunday, all the darkies had to go to church.  Sometimes the Master had a house on his plantation for preaching, and sometimes the slaves had to go ten or twelve miles to preaching.  When they went so far the slaves ‘ole’ Master’s’ mules and wagons.” [4]

Minnie Green was a child at Emancipation.  During Reconstruction in Meriwether County, she “‘hired myself out to Miss Mary, and she raised me.’  Minnie played with white children, went to the ‘white folks’ Church, and did not ‘associate with niggers’ until she was grown.” [5]  She remembered:

“Every summer they went to the Camp Grounds for two weeks. They took the children, Minnie for nurse, a stove, a cow and everything they needed for that time.” [6]

Green recalled the shock she experienced when she first confronted African-America religion.

“She was nearly grown before she went to a colored church and ‘baptisin’’ and it frightened her to see a person immersed, and come up ‘shoutin’’.  Minnie thought they was ‘fightin’ the Preacher’ so she didn’t go back anymore.” [7]

Lennon may have had a similar experience when she moved to Troup County, Georgia.  It was still on the Piedmont, but it was on the border with Alabama in the Chattahoochee river drainage (the cream in the map below).  Before the Civil War, it was the “fourth wealthiest county in Georgia and its fifth largest slave holding county.” [8]

Carleton Wood said slaves were over 70% of the Troup County population in 1860. [9]  They were 57% in neighboring Meriwether County, in the yellow area of the Flint River, and 64% in Monroe County in the Ocmulgee River basin. [10]  In Clayton County, where the white Lovejoys lived before the war, the biggest concentration of slaves on a plantation in 1850 was 56. [11]  In Troup County, nineteen people owned more in 1860. [12]

After the war, many residents of Antioch, near the Alabama border, moved into “the more prosperous towns of West Point or LaGrange.” [13]  By the 1890s, the desire for cotton mills had become “like the measles [. . .]  Every town wanted to build a cotton mill.” [14]  La Grange was primed when outside investors suggested it organize one. [15]

White tenants moved to mill villages, because they “could not produce cotton at five cents a pound.” [16]  In 1913, Arthur Small and Howard Small reported seven large cotton mills [17] and 2,918 farms, of which 20% still were run by owners. [18]  Most of the tenants were Blacks. [19]

When whites withdrew from the country, African Americans were free to develop their own traditions.  While Lennon indicated she had heard both her mother and two grandmothers sing “Come by Here” in Monroe and Meriwether counties, [20] she wrote Lynn Rohrbough:

“The young-adult experience (the one I wrote about) which touched me most was in Troup Co, in small communities of Louise [21] and Antioch [22] where they had annual ‘Graveyard Meetings’ to clean off cemetery, with dinner, speaking (preaching) in the afternoon and singing.  Of course, all this was prior to 1930, and even the rural areas have had such ‘face liftings’ - otherwise I could send you to an exact spot.  Now these same churches have piano’s and song books - and they sing ‘song-book songs’ in a more modern way for the most part.  The old songs are almost extinct. [23]

Once Lennon was aware “Come by Here” had been published, she began checking to see if others knew her song.  She wrote that one Sunday in Asheville, North Carolina’s Berry Temple Chapel, she “was song leader for the fellowship hour and suggested spirituals.  When we had done ‘Jacobs Ladder,’ ‘Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley,’ and ‘My Lord, What A Morning,’ I asked how many knew ‘Kum Ba Yah.’  There were 69 present, all adult except 4 young people and 10 children.  The only hand that went up was [name].  So without further ado, I said, ‘It goes like this’-and I played the tune on the piano.  Before I had played it once through everyone was singing and it was the words  that I know.  I was amused.” [24]

She also asked discovered “one of our teachers heard it sung in a rural church near her home during the summer.  It was ‘raised’ by a very old man she says.  She lives in South Carolina.” [25]

Lennon’s lyrics have not survived.  It isn’t known if she was playing the tune from a Rohrbough songbook, or one she already knew.  The closest one has to her perceptions is her response to Rohrbough’s request for other songs.  She answered:

“As for the other songs of my home community there are several old old ones that I like very much.  I’ve never seen them in print.  I just heard them, and have helped to sing them.  At present I cannot recall all the words - I’ll have to contact my sister [26] and some cousins then I’ll write them down for you, and will ask my husband [27] to jot down the tunes.  One is ‘Some of These Days’ - perhaps you’ve heard it

‘I’m goin’ down to the river of Jordan (“Jerdan”) 3 times
I’m goin’ down to the river of Jerdan Some of these days’

and the verses go on and on with whatever is troubling the singer.

‘I’m gonna sit at the Welcome Table -’
‘I’m gonna sit down beside King Jesus -’
‘I’m gonna meet my lovin’ Mother (father sister - anyone!)’
‘I’m gonna tell God about my troubles - ’
‘I’m gonna tell God how you treat me - ’

- and so it goes - usually the last verse is to ‘sit down beside King Jesus.’  It’s a nice tune sort of lively - sort of sad.” [28]

Most of the improvised verses describe events after death, with a first stanza that establishes the chronology.  The post for 19 May 2019 briefly discussed crossing the river Jordan as a metaphor for dying.

It’s interesting that “Jerdan” is the only word Lennon tries to transcribe as it was pronounced.  She dropped the terminal “g” on “loving” and used “gonna” for “going to.”  Otherwise, most of the lines use trochees (Xx), but some are more awkward, suggesting that she used standard English words, rather than African-American ones.  For instance “tell God” and especially “tell God how” atypically concatenate hard syllables.

Whether or not she associated the themes of this with “Come by Here” is moot.  What she does reveal is she knew songs that had the same AAAB format as the CRS version of “Kumbaya,” that they were open-ended, and that particular verses were used to signal the beginning and end of the song, that the first verses (sung in any order) were associated with the song, and they were followed by improvised ones.

Graphics
1.  Claire Lennon and Edwardo Balden, 1970s.  Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Asheville, photograph in Special Collections of the University of North Carolina at Asheville.  Another photograph of Lennon from her years at the Allen School appears on the Photos K tab.

2.  Pfly.  “Map of the Chattahoochee River (highlighted) and watershed — in the Apalachicola Basin (ACF Basin).”  5 September 2007.  Uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Pfly.

End Notes
1.  The Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration collected oral histories from former slaves in the 1930s.  The ones from Georgia were published in four volumes by the Library of Congress in 1941. [29]

2.  Alice Hutcheson.  Interviewed by Grace McCune.  Edited by Sarah H. Hall and John N. Booth.  229–235 in volume 2.  233.  Hutcheson was a singer.  She was singing “Lord, I’se a Comin’ Home” when McCune arrived.  She provided words for “I’se wukkin’ on de buildin’,” which she said men sang when they rolled logs.  She also sang a number of verses of one funeral song, and part of “Oh, Come Angel Band.”  Her words were those published by William Bradbury in 1862, rather than the original ones from 1860. [30]

3.  Lewis Favor.  Interviewed for WPA by E. Driskell.  8 May 1937.  160–163 in volume 1.  162.

4.  Charlie King.  Interviewed for WPA by Mary A. Crawford.  16 September 1936.  21–24 in volume 3.  23.

5.  Minnie Green.  Interviewed for WPA by Alberta Minor.  59–60 in volume 2.  59.
6.  Green.  2:59.
7.  Green.  2:59.

8.  Carleton Wood.  “Cotton Farming, Mill Villages and Fancy Parterres: The Woven Landscapes of LaGrange, Georgia.”  Magnolia 22:3–7:Summer-Fall 2008.  1.

9.  Wood.  1.

10.  “Population by Counties—1790–1870.  Table II.–State of Georgia.”   United States Census, 1870, volume 1.  21–22.

11.  Joseph H. Moore, and Ancestors Unlimited Inc (Genealogical Society of Clayton County).  “Clayton - Henry County, Ga Slave Owner 1850 Census.”  US Gen Web website.  This is discussed in the post for 18 October 2020.

12.  Tom Blake.  “Troup County, Georgia. Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census.”  Ancestry website. February 2002.

13.  “Antioch Baptist Church of Christ Records.”  Troup Archives website.

14.  Fuller Callaway.  Quoted by Gary Mock.  “Fuller E. Callaway.”  Wilson College of Textiles website.  Callaway became the most prominent mill owner in LaGrange, Georgia.

15.  Among the charter members of Dixie Cotton Mills in 1895 were W. N. Weeks of New York, J. T. Cressey of New Hampshire, and Thomas P. Ivey of Atlanta. [33]

16.  Callaway.  Quoted by Mock.  “These men began to move to town as cotton mill operatives.  Their position in the country had been so poor, on account of the low price of their product, that it elevated them even to bring them to town to work in a cotton mill, which in itself was a poorly-paid occupation.”

17.  A. T. Sweet and Howard C. Small.  “Soil Survey of Troup County, Georgia.”  633–653 in Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1912.  Edited by Milton Whitney.  United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils, 1913.  634.

18.  Sweet.  637.
19.  Sweet.  641.

20.  Claire M. Lennon.  Letter to Mr. Rohrbough.  19 November 1956.  WAS.  In both typescript and original handwritten letter.  Handwritten version used for quotation.  A more complete quotation appears in the post for 18 October 2020.  Details on the source of the letter are provided on the Legends 2 tab.

21.  Louise was a stop on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad in the northeastern part of Troup County.  Men began working a chromate deposit south of town during World War I, [34] but I’ve found nothing that identifies the miners.

22.  Antioch was established as a farm market center in the 1830s in an area with notably large trees, and incorporated as a dry town in 1851. [35]  The population had shriveled to 58 by 1900. [36]

23.  Lennon.  In both typescript and original handwritten letter.  Handwritten version used.

24.  Lennon.  The comments were included in Rohrbough’s typed version of her letter, but did not appear in the handwritten letter.

25.  Lennon.  In both typescript and original handwritten letter.  Handwritten version used.  Leaders who line-out hymns are said to “raise” them.  This will be discussed in a future post.

26.  Her sister, Lenore Lovejoy Gridney, is mentioned in the post for 25 October 2020.

27.  Her husband, Madison C. Lennon, was a music teacher.  He is profiled in the post for 25 October 2020.

28.  Lennon.  This is in the original handwritten letter, but was not included in the typescript.

29.  For more information on the WPA Slave Narratives project, see the post for 23 January 2019.

30.  Jefferson Hascall and John William Dadmun.  “Angels Bear Me Away.”  The Melodeon.  Edited by J. W. Dadmun.  Boston: J. P. Magee, 1860.  12.  William Bradbury published it in 1862. [31]  Hymnary notes Bradbury introduced Hutcheson’s phrase “to my immortal home,” in place of Hascall’s “to my own immortal home.” [32]

31.  J. Haskell.  “The Land of Beulah.”  Bradbury’s Golden Shower of S.S. Melodies.  Edited by Wm. B. Bradbury. New York: Ivison, Phinney and Company, 1862.  50.  “SS” is Sunday school.

32.  “Oh, Come, Angel Band.”  Hymnary website.

33.  Dennis Partridge.  “Dixie Cotton Mills.”  Georgia Genealogy website.  I could find nothing about the three.

34.  T. J. Ballard.  Investigation of Louise Chromite Deposits Troup County, Ga.  Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, July 1948.  2.

35.  Clifford L. Smith.  History of Troup County.  Atlanta, Georgia: Foote and Davis Company, 31 December 1933.  62.

36.  Wikipedia.  “Antioch, Troup County, Georgia.”

Claire Lovejoy Lennon

Topic: CRS Version
Claire Lovejoy changed from an ordinary girl on the Georgia Piedmont to someone quite extraordinary when she was around 14 in 1916.  As mentioned in the post for 18 October 2020, her childhood was spent shuttling between her grandmothers living in Meriwether and Monroe counties.  Then, she recalled, she was sent to “high school in Cordele (Crisp Co.), and from 16 on in Troup Co.” [1]  Cordele was some 75 miles south below the fall line on the coastal plain. [2]

She had little choice.  At the time, 14 high schools existed in Georgia for African Americans. [3]  Of these, only one was publicly funded. [4]  Two private schools existed in Cordele.  Unless she had kin in the area, the adolescent Lovejoy was a boarding student.

The better known today was Gillespie Normal School.  In 1915, the Presbyterian-sponsored institution reported 14 secondary students and 12 boarders.  Thomas Jesse Jones said “twelve grades are claimed, but only a limited amount of secondary work is provided.  There is some instruction in sewing.” [5]

The other was the Horsley Normal and Industrial Institute.  In 1915, it had eight students in three secondary grades, a larger number of boarders (40), and “meager furniture for classrooms and dormitories.”  The South Georgia Colored Methodist Episcopal Conference was the sponsor. [6]

Neither school offered a full high school program.  Her obituary said:

“She began her teaching career at the age of 17 while attending Georgia State Teacher’s College.  There she received her junior college degree and a Life Professional Teacher’s Certificate.  She continued to take summer courses throughout her career.” [7]

Teacher education was limited in the South for both Blacks and whites.  Three levels of certification were awarded by examinations and/or experience.  Lovejoy probably began at the third level, based on her secondary education, and rose by taking summer classes. [8]

Georgia State Teacher’s College is a bit of an error.  It was part of the segregated University of Georgia. [9]  The only state college for Blacks at the time was Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth.  In 1932, it became part of the University System of Georgia and was renamed Georgia State College. [10]

Most likely Claire met her husband, Madison Lennon, while she was teaching in Troup County where LaGrange was the county seat.  He was born in Meriwether County five years after she was, but grew up in Savannah.  He went to high school in Daytona Beach, Florida, and a Methodist junior college in Morristown, Tennessee.  He then “entered Wilberforce University, Ohio., where his music career began.”  His first teaching job was in LaGrange. [11]

Times were difficult for African Americans who raised cotton on leased land.  The boll weevil appeared in Troup County in 1915. [12]  While prices per pound rose during World War I to a high of 35.3 cents in 1919, they dropped to 15.9 cents the next year.  They rose to twenty-some cents in the early 1920s, [13] but the weevil had all but destroyed the crops. [14]  With no cotton crop, there was little money to pay teachers.

During the late Depression, Claire began working at the Colored Orphanage in Oxford, North Carolina, as the matron for forty-some elementary and junior high-aged boys.  At age 35, she was described as “a kindly young women with years of teaching experience.” [15]

Claire was hired after the previous matron resigned. [16]  Madison already was working at the orphanage “as a regular teacher, for which service he draws his salary.  For his lodging and meals, he trains our singing groups and is at present training a band.” [17]

The next year Claire’s sister, Lenore, joined the staff as matron for the girls.  She had married Grady Gidney, [18] who supervised the orphanage farm. [19]  Children were expected to work in the fields and grew most of their food.  The Rotary Club gave the orphanage some musical instruments, and Madison began raising money with concerts by the band. [20]

The report for the spring semester of 1939 recorded Claire had spent five summers at Georgia State Teachers College, while Lenore had completed six. [21]  Madison’s pay was still room and board, with a percentage of the money his musicians collected playing on the streets. [22]

The superintendent, who hired them, died 15 October 1940. [23]  The next fall, the Lennons moved  to Asheville, North Carolina, where Madison was hired to teach music at the segregated Stephens-Lee High School. [24]  It had opened in the spring of 1923. [25]

Claire’s obituary indicated they joined Berry Chapel Methodist Church, [26] which was affiliated with the Allen School. [27]  The boarding school for African-American girls was established in 1887 by the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of what was then the northern Methodist Episcopal Church. [28]

Asheville had grown as a resort for people with tuberculosis after the arrival of the Western and North Carolina Railroad in 1880.  The Southern Railway took it over in 1894. [29]  George Vanderbilt’s mother came for the climate, [30] and in 1895 he invited friends to his new summer estate. [31]

The seasonal trade declined when the automobile offered other possibilities, and the city suffered financially during the Depression. [32]  During World War II, the federal government revived the economy when it used the largest resort hotel as a rehabilitation center for returning soldiers. [33]

The cash spent in local stores allowed individuals to increase their support for schools.  The white Julia Titus had been named principal for the Allen School in 1937.  In 1943, she hired Claire to teach home economics.  During the war Titus also was serving as the school’s superintendent.  She promoted Claire to that position in 1945. [34]  Claire’s sister was the school’s housekeeper. [35]

The Lennons’ lives became woven into the Black Community.  He directed music groups for Berry Temple, [36] while she sometimes was song leader for its Sunday evening fellowship hour. [37]  Most important was Stephens-Lee.  One student remembered:

“Under the direction of Madison ‘Doc’ Lennon, the Stephens-Lee marching band, used to thrill WNC residents with its jazzy music and high-stepping drum major supported by a corps of pretty majorettes.” [38]

Another student, Stanley Baird, remembered Lennon disapproved of rhythm and blues, and insisted they learn to read music and “play legitimate concert music.”  Clifford Cotton said he hit “us on the head if he caught us playing ‘Honky-Tonk.’  He didn’t really go for that.”  They named their band The Untils because Lennon always said “until you do better.” [39]

The idyl ended with desegregation.  Stephens-Lee was closed in 1967, and Madison was assigned to the newly integrated South French Broad High School. [40]  The next year he accepted a position as assistant professor of music at the all-girls, Black Spelman College in Atlanta. [41]  He had managed to earn a masters’ degree from Ohio State University in 1950. [42]

At Spelman, Claire was given a familiar role.  She was employed as “official hostess” responsible for “campus social activities, such as teas, dinners and receptions.” [43]

Madison retired in 1973, [44] and they returned to Asheville where he gave private music lessons. [45]  He died in 1976. [46]  Years later he was “inducted into the North Carolina Bandmasters Association Hall of Fame.” [47]

Claire remained active in Church Women United.  She moved into the Brooks-Howell Home in 1984, [48] where Titus had been living since 1975. [49  It had been founded as a retirement home for Methodist deaconesses and missionaries. [50]

She died in 1992, leaving two nieces and a nephew.  Three generations of ministers from Berry Temple spoke at her funeral. [51]  Maxine West, who had been active in United Methodist Women, [52] joined two of them at the Brooks-Howell memorial service. [53]

End Notes
1.  Claire M. Lennon.  Letter to Mr. Rohrbough.  19 November 1956.  WAS.  In both typescript and original handwritten letter.  Handwritten version used for quotation.  A more complete quotation appears in the post for 18 October 2020.  Details on the source of the letter are provided in the post for 14 October 2020.  The map posted with the entry for 18 October 2020 shows the locations of Cordele and Troup County.  Her photograph appears on the Photos K tab.

2.  “Distance from Cordele, GA to Forsyth, GA.”  Distance Cities website.

3.  Loretta Funke.  “The Negro In Education.”  The Journal of Negro History 5:1–21:1920.  12.   Her source was Monroe N. Work.  The Negro Year Book.  Nashville, Tennessee: Sunday School Union Print, 1915.  216.

4.  Thomas Jesse Jones.  Negro Education; A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States.  United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, 1917. 190

5.  Jones.  207.

6.  Jones.  207–208.  The formation of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church is mentioned in the posts for 18 October 2017 and 15 November 2020.

7.  Claire Lennon.  Obituary.  Asheville [North Carolina] Citizen-Times.  20 August 1992.  14.

8.  Some details on this process and the affects it had on individuals can be gleaned from Richard L. Saunders.  Never Been Rich.  Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2001.  22, 23, 26, 28.  The subject was a white teacher in Marengo County, Alabama, Harry Harrison Kroll.  He is mentioned in the post for 24 January 2020.

9.  “History of the College of Education.”  University of Georgia website.  The school was not integrated until 1961. [54]

10.  Wikipedia.  “Savannah State University.”  The name was changed to Savannah State College in 1950, and Savannah State University in 1966.

11.  Madison C. Lennon.  Obituary.  Asheville [North Carolina] Citizen-Times.  25 April 1976.  39.

12.  Carleton Wood.  “Cotton Farming, Mill Villages and Fancy Parterres: The Woven Landscapes of LaGrange, Georgia.”  Magnolia 22:3–7:Summer-Fall 2008.  4.

13.  “All Cotton Area Planted and Harvested, Yield, Production, Price, and Value – United States: 1866-2019.”  39–62 in Crop Production Historical Track Records.  United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, April 2020.  39.

14.  Erin Burnett.  “How Georgia Restored Cotton to the Throne.”  Farmers and Consumers Market Bulletin 100:1,12:30 August 2017.  “By 1917, every cotton-producing county in Georgia reported boll weevils, and cotton production dropped 30 percent.  This decline continued and in 1921, Georgia losses had reached 45 percent, the worst in the United States.”

15.  Colored Orphanage of North Carolina.  “A Partial Report.  February 1, 1937—December 31, 1937.”  9.  In T. K. Borders.  Report of the Superintendent.  The Colored Orphanage of North Carolina.  February 1, 1937 to June 30, 1940.  Oxford, North Carolina.  It’s a bound collection of individually paged reports.  She had 42 charges in June 1939, [55] and 41 in June 1940. [56]

16.  Colored Orphanage, December 1937.  9 in Borders.
17.  Colored Orphanage, December 1937.  12 in Borders.

18.  Colored Orphanage.  “Report for Year January 1, 1938—December 31 , 1938.”  12 in Borders.

19.  Colored Orphanage.  “Report for Half Year.  January 1, 1939—June 30, 1939.”  50 in Borders.

20.  Colored Orphanage, December 1938.  12 in Borders.
21.  Colored Orphanage, June 1939.  61 in Borders.
22.  Colored Orphanage, June 1939.  53 in Borders.

23.  Colored Orphanage.  “A Partial Report.  February 1, 1937—December 31, 1937.”  5 in Borders.

24.  Madison Lennon, obituary.

25.  Zoe Rhine.  “The Faculty of Stephens-Lee High School: A Tribute.”  Pack Library North Carolina Room, Asheville, North Carolina, website.  20 February 2018.

26.  Claire Lennon, obituary.

27.   Sarah Williams.  “Berry Temple United Methodist Church Closes.”  The [Asheville, North Carolina] Urban News website.  12 July 2019.  It was named for Mary Ann Marriage Allen, [57] who paid for the first dormitory. [58]

28.  “Guide to the Allen High School Records, 1899 - 2008.”  Belk Library, Appalachian State University website.

29.  Wikipedia.  “Asheville, North Carolina.”

30.  “Asheville as a Health Retreat.”  United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service website.

31.  Wikipedia.  “Biltmore Estate.”
32.  Wikipedia, Asheville.

33.  Elizabeth Scheld Glynn.  “Grove Park Inn.”  NC Pedia website.  2006.  The resort also was used for other purposes but this was the one most likely to have generated revenue in the city.

34.  Belk Library.  Titus was responsible for redirecting the school from the industrial training program with home economics, which was influenced by Booker T. Washington, into the prestigious high school it became in the 1950s.  Perhaps the best-known student was Nina Simone.  She is discussed in the post for 18 October 2017.  Titus’ photograph in the post for 4 November 2020.

35.  Look on the Fields, White Unto Harvest.  New York: The Methodist Church.  Woman’s Division of Christian Service of the Board of Missions and Church Extension.  Annual Report for 1945-1946.  67.

36.  Madison Lennon, obituary.  He was the “former director of the Senior Choir of Berry Temple, director of Male Chorus, and Brass Ensemble.”

37.  Claire Lennon, letter, typed and handwritten versions.

38.  Henry Robinson.  Asheville [North Carolina] Citizens-Times.  13 February 1994.  Quoted by Betty Jamerson Reed.  School Segregation in Western North Carolina: A History, 1860s-1970s.  Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2011.  176.  WNC is western North Carolina.

39.  Dan Kochakian.  “‘Motown of the South’ and the Illustrious Mason James Agency.”  The [Asheville, North Carolina] Urban News.  10 February 2016.

40.  Rhine.  She has a photograph of him.
41.  Item.  Ohio State University Monthly.  October 1966.

42.  Jerry Baughman.  “Class Personals.”  Ohio State University Monthly.  May 1974.  Lennon was not usual.  According to Zoe Rhine: “Of the 34 faculty members in 1964, with all of them having Bachelor’s Degrees, twenty faculty members including the principal held master’s degrees, which is 59%.  Of the fourteen thought not to have master’s degrees, six of them were taking graduate level courses.  Of the twenty with a master’s degree, nine were taking additional graduate-level study, and three more had taken further graduate study at three universities, one person has a second Master’s.  One of the teachers with a master’s degree was four hours short of his doctoral degree when he died unexpectedly.  It seems plausible that faculty who were working on further degrees may have attained either a master’s, a second master’s, or a doctorate at a later period.” [59]

43.  “Spotlight on: Mrs. Claire Lennon.”  Spelman Spotlight 40:3:April 1973.
44.  Rhine.

45.  Item on “Doc Lennon Day A Special Tribute.”  Asheville [North Carolina] Citizen-Times.  2  July 1982.  40.

46.  Madison Lennon, obituary.
47.  Kochakian.
48.  Claire Lennon, obituary.
49.  Julia P. Titus.  Obituary.  Asheville [North Carolina] Citizen-Times.  29 July 1990.  20.
50.  “Our Story.”  Brooks-Howell website.

51.  Claire Lennon, obituary.  James T. Jones became pastor in 1963.  He was followed by M. C. Hickman in 1973 and Carl Arlington 1992 [60]

52.  Louise Wright.  Journeying with Methodist Women 1966 to 1986.  The United Methodist Church United Methodist Women, Western North Carolina Conference, 1986.  Especially 55 and 59.

53.  Claire Lennon, obituary.  The others were Jones and Arlington.
54.  Wikipedia.  “University of Georgia.”
55.  Colored Orphanage, June 1939.  47 in Borders.
56.  Colored Orphanage.  “Report for “July 1, 1939—June 30, 1940.”  63 in Borders.
57.  Item.  Friends’ Intelligencer 56:590:1899.

58.  Jackie R. Booker.  “Allen High School (Asheville, North Carolina): 1884–1974.”  Oxford University Press, Oxford African American Studies Center website.

59.  Rhine.
60.  Williams.

 

Claire Marguerite Lovejoy

Topic: CRS Version
The Civil War precipitated large population movements.  They began when planters, who lived along the Georgia coast, moved inland after the Union navy took control of Doboy Sound in late 1861.  As mentioned in the post for 23 June 2019, Tom Spalding’s daughter-in-law, moved herself and the family slaves to Milledgeville, Georgia. [1]

After Sherman took Atlanta on 2 September 1864, he dispatched residents through Lovejoy Station [2] to Macon, Georgia, [3] while he planned his march through the Piedmont during early winter, with limited provisions.  His troops were ordered to seize food and horses to supply themselves and demoralize the population.

He divided his men into two columns.  The western unit was protected by 5,000 cavalrymen, led by Judson Kilpatrick.  They followed the railroad to Lovejoy Station and Macon. [4]

Claire Lovejoy, who knew a version of “Kumbaya” around 1915, spent her girlhood years in Monroe and Meriwether counties. [5]  Individuals, who were slaves there during the Civil War, recalled Yankees breaking into smokehouses. [6]  Lewis Favor remembered that his widowed owner took him and “several other slaves” westward to LaGrange in Troup County after “a battle was being fought a few miles distant and they all saw the cannon balls fall on the plantation.” [7]

Life after Emancipation varied.  Favor said he and his mother stayed with the widow, [8] but Minnie Green said her parents left the plantation after the harvest in Meriwether County. [9]  In Monroe County, Alice Hutcheson said only one person left the Robinson’s immediately, [10] but later:

“I wukked for Miss Sally Yervin a while and den us moved here to Athens.  My gran’pa come atter us, and Mr. Mote Robinson moved us in one of dem big, high up waggons.” [11]

[I worked for Miss Sally Yervin a while and then us moved here to Athens.  My grandpa come after us, and Mr. Mote Robinson moved us in one of them big, high up wagons.]

The 1870 census showed the number of Freedmen living in Meriwether County had dropped more than 20% from 8,752 in 1860 to 7,369.  The African-American population didn’t grow much in Monroe County, an indication of out-migration and, possibly, high mortality.  It increased by less than 6% from 10,200 to 10,804.  In contrast, Bibb County, with Macon and a regional office of the Freedmen’s Bureau, jumped 67%, from 6,831 to 11,424. [12]

The price of cotton per pound in Liverpool, England, rose from 6.25 cents in 1860 to 27.5 cents in 1864.  When the Freedmen’s Bureau forced African Americans back into the cotton fields in 1866, [13] the price was down to 15.5 cents.  The next year it was 10.88 cents. [14]  Prices fluctuated from 8.5 cents to 9.1 cents through the 1880s. [15]

Low prices for cotton translated into reduced incomes for former planters who leased their land for shares of crops.  The per capital income of whites before the war had been $125.  “In 1879 it was just over $80.” [16]  They began to realize profits from their land were going elsewhere.

Many land owners, who once supervised the work on their plantations, moved into towns after they subcontracted oversight to their tenants. [17]  In county seats, they were in close contact with bankers, merchants, and representatives of railroads who were promoting a “New South” based on manufacturing rather than agriculture.  Local cotton spinning mills became the panacea. [18]

Cities along the fall line, with an infrastructure from before the war, [19] were the first.  In 1876, two local cotton merchants and one from Savannah organized the Bibb Manufacturing Company in Macon.  By 1895, it employed 700 people. [20]

The use of steam freed mills from their reliance on falls for power, but they still needed water to drive engines and railroads to ship products.  In Monroe County, Forsyth Manufacturing was operating by 1900. [21]  In Meriwether County, the town of Manchester was organized in 1909 on a new rail line for a mill built by Fuller Callaway. [22]

Few African Americans worked in textile mills, and none lived in company-owned housing. [23]  Black men were hired in logging, where the number employed in Georgie rose from 5,943 in 1890 to 10,240 in 1900.  More were working in turpentine camps. [24]

The new social elite in towns like Forsyth created a demand for African-American women to do the same jobs they had done on plantations: cooking, cleaning, laundry, and sewing.

The hidden benefit of segregation for African Americans was their children were spared working in textile mills.  C. Van Woodward found 25% of mill employees were between the ages of 10 and 15 in 1890. [25]

Monroe County, where Lovejoy went to school, had 41 public schools for African Americans in 1900, [26] and 50 a decade or so later.  None were in the town of Forsyth. [27]

If her grandmother lived near Forsyth and could afford tuition, then Lovejoy would have attended the Forsyth Normal and Industrial Institute owned by W. N. Hubbard.  Hubbard reported 500 students in 1911 and 433 in the 1912-1913 school year.  However, when Thomas Jesse Jones visited in 1913 and 1915, only 200 were attending. [28]

Three teachers handled nine grades, for an average class size of 66. [29]  By comparison, the public schools for Blacks in Monroe County averaged 81 students per building, while the white ones had 41. [30]

Meriwether County, which was only 45 miles west of Monroe, [31] had a more varied economy.  An ancient ridge of mountains, worn down to a few peaks, crossed the southern part of the county.  Its rivers flowed southwest to the Gulf of Mexico. [32]

Several springs, which flowed from the monadnocks, had been resorts since land was taken from the Creek in 1825. [33]  David Rose built two bath houses and sold lots to “gentlemen” in Columbus, Georgia, and Apalachicola, Florida, in 1833. [34]  The one was on the fall line [35] below the springs where biting gnats were a problem; [36] the other was its port on the Gulf of Mexico. [37]

After the Civil War, people from Columbus continued to come, even when the local hotel burned in 1889.  Charles Davis transformed the area in 1893 when he built the Meriwether Inn, which was accessible by a branch of the Southern Railroad that ran northeast from Columbus. [38]  Benjamin Bulloch established Bullochville [39] along the tracks the same year. [40]  Black men were visible servants, [41] while women cleaned rooms and did laundry.

Resort life was seasonal.  Lovejoy said she spent her summers with her grandmother in Meriwether County, when there was high demand for labor.  In winter, when the tourists were gone, she lived with her grandmother in Monroe County where there was a private school. [42]

When she revealed these details to Lynn Rohrbough in 1956, she was answering a specific question, not writing an autobiography.  One can place her in a social and economic environment, but can hazard no guesses about her family and its circumstances.

Graphics
1.  Hal Jespersen.  “Map of the Savannah Campaign (Sherman’s March to the Sea) of the American Civil War.”  Posted to Wikimedia Commons.  Uploaded by Nis Hoff on 3 February 2009; last updated 25 September 2013.

2.  D. F. Hewett and G. W. Crickmay.  Section of “Generalized geologic map of west-central Georgia and east-central Alabama, showing location of Warm Springs quadrangle (shaded area) and principal springs (numbered).”  The Warm Springs of Georgia: Their Geologic Relations and Origin.  A Summary Report.  United States Department of the Interior, Geological Survey, 1937.  5.

3.  Lennon’s photograph appears on the “Photos K” tab.

End Notes
The Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration collected oral histories from former slaves in the 1930s.  The ones from Georgia were published in four volumes by the Library of Congress in 1941. [43]  The interviewed individuals who were born in Meriwether County were:

Lewis Favor.  Interviewed by E. Driskell.  8 May 1937.  160–163 in volume 1.

Minnie Green.  Interviewed by Alberta Minor.  59–60 in volume 2.

Charlie King.  Interviewed by Mary A. Crawford.  16 September 1936.  21–24 in volume 3.

The one from Monroe County was Alice Hutcheson.  Interviewed by Grace McCune.  Edited by Sarah H. Hall and John N. Booth.  229–235 in volume 2.

1.  Milledgeville was the state capital.  It surrendered to Sherman on 23 November 1864. [44]
2.  Lovejoy Station is discussed in the post for 18 October 2020.

3.  “Atlanta Under Sherman.”  About North Georgia website.  Summer 2011.  “A total of 446 families with 705 adults, 860 children and 79 ‘servants’ made their way from Atlanta to Rough and Ready, the end of the tracks in Union hands.  Confederate wagons then carried the evacuees to Lovejoy Station, where they could depart to Macon.”

4.  Wikipedia.  “Sherman’s March to the Sea.”  It reprints part of William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order 120 for 9 November 1864.

5.  The map with the post for 18 October 2020 identified the places where she lived.
6.  King, 3:23; and Hutcheson, 2:230.
7.  Favor.  1:163.
8.  Favor.  1:163.
9.  Green.  2:50.
10.  Hutcheson.  2:234–235.
11.  Hutcheson.  2: 235.

12.  “Table V.  Population, by Race and by Counties: 1880, 1870, 1860.”  Population, by Race, Sex, and Nativity.  United Status Census Bureau, 1880 Census.  Volume 1.  386.

Mildred Thompson.  “The Freedmen’s Bureau in Georgia in 1865–66: An Instrument of Reconstruction.”  The Georgia Historical Quarterly 5:42–43:1921.  “In Macon, Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, and elsewhere multitudes of feeble men, women and children were living either in the open or in rude shelters of logs and brush.  Under these conditions there was inevitably much sickness with a high rate of mortality.” [page 42]

13.  Thompson.  44–46.

14.  N. Hall.  “The Liverpool Cotton Market and the American Civil War.”  Northern History 34:149–169:1998.  149.

15.  “All Cotton Area Planted and Harvested, Yield, Production, Price, and Value – United States: 1866-2019.”  39–62 in Crop Production Historical Track Records.  United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, April 2020.  39.  The high was 10.3 cents in 1881.

16.  Roger Ransom.  “Economics of the Civil War.”  Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History website.  24 August 2001.  His source was Ransom  and Richard Sutch.  “Growth and Welfare in the American South in the Nineteenth Century.”  Explorations in Economic History 16:207–235:1979.

17.  Mark Baldwin.  Soil Survey of Meriwether County, Georgia.  United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils, 1917.  9.  The soil survey for Monroe Country didn’t mention this, but it clearly is what happened with Ruby Pickens Tartt’s father in Sumter County, Alabama. [45]

18.   C. Vann Woodward.  Origins of the New South.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951.  131–133.  In Georgia, Michael Gagnon said: “The thirty-year cycle of boom and bust in Georgia’s antebellum textile industry proved that the success of southern textile mills was inversely related to long-term trends in the price of cotton.  When agriculture suffered, mill building flourished.  When agricultural profits rose, Georgia’s textile industry floundered.  Georgians rationally pursued profits in both agriculture and industry but were mindful of market forces and the history of risks in each area. [46]

19.  The infrastructure was intellectual rather than physical.  Most obvious was the development of millwrights and others with knowledge of hydraulics of rivers and dams.  Gagnon mentions antebellum experiments with plant size and sources for water power.  Company histories show northern ideas of marketing were not transferrable, and had to be reinvented.  For instance, when the Macon Manufacturing Company opened in 1851, “it was under the management of a northern man, and the goods being shipped to northern markets for sale.”  When it failed to prosper, the company appointed a local man who “immediately sought a market and credit at home, and succeeded in finding purchasers.” [47]

20.  Arden Williams.  “Bibb Manufacturing Company.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  13 October 2006; last updated 16 September 2019.  In 1878, it bought the facilities of Macon Manufacturing.

21.  Georgia Department of Agriculture.  Georgia, Historical and Industrial.  Overseen by O. B. Stevens.  Atlanta, Georgia: George W. Harrison, 1901.  338.

22.  “Manchester.”  West Georgia Textile Trail website.  Callaway was expanding his operations from LaGrange in neighboring Troup County.   He is mentioned in the post for 28 October 2020.

23.  Woodward.  222.  In Charlotte, North Carolina, African Americans “worked in the boiler room, or as janitors or on the loading docks, and did not typically share their work environment with white mill operatives.” [48]

24.  “Georgia.”  131–147 in Manufactures and the Mechanical Industries, by States and Territories.  United States Census, 1910.  132.  Turpentine labor needs increased from 9,880 workers in 1880 to 19,199 in 1890.  Black men working in logging are discussed in the posts for 3 February 2019 (Georgia), 17 May 2020 (general), and 20 September 2020 (Sumter County, Alabama).

25.  Woodward.  236.  40% of the employees were adult women, and 35% were adult men.  Macon Manufacturing advertised “we are much pleased with the order, cleanliness and healthfulness of this Establishment, and especially that the operatives are all Southern girls.” [49]

26.  Georgia.  766.

27.  Thomas Jesse Jones.  Negro Education; A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States.  United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, 1917.  232.

28.  Jones.  232.
29.  Jones.  232–233.

30.  In 1900, the Georgia Department of Agriculture reported Monroe County had 41 public schools for 3,326 African-American children, and 40 buildings for 1,648 white children. [50]  The larger number of Black children in school probably reflected the use of child labor in the mills.  The 1910 Census said “in the absence of legislation regulating child labor, all the cotton manufacturers in the state have signed an agreement to exclude from the mills children under 10 years of age, and those under 12 who can not show a certificate of 4 months’ attendance at school.” [51]  This implies younger children were employed in 1900.

31.  “Distance from Forsyth, GA to Greenville, GA.”  Distance-Cities website.  These are the county seats.

32.  Wikipedia.  “Apalachicola River.”

33.  Etta Blanchard Worsley.  “Warm Springs.”  The Georgia Review 3:233–244:1949.  236.  It was the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs. [52]

34.  Worsley.  238.

35.  John S. Lupold.  “Columbus.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  30 March 2004; last updated 9 September 2019.

36.  Mack S. Duncan.  “Fall Line.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website. 18 November 2002; last updated 23 July 2018.  Gnats live in the sandy soil of the coastal plain.

37.  Wikipedia.  “Apalachicola, Florida.”
38.  Worsley.  240.

39.  Kaye Lanning Minchew.  “Warm Springs.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  6 December 2002; last updated 22 August 2018.  In 1923, the new owner, Thomas W. Loyless, formed the Warm Springs Corporation with George Peabody, who, in turn, invited Franklin Roosevelt to visit in 1924. [53]  Bullochville became Warm Springs in 1924. [54]

40.  Kathleen Walls.  “Hotel Warm Springs.”  Visit Georgia Online website.

41.  Worsley.  240.  “The Negro drivers, wearing linen dusters and caps, cheerfully awaited Milady’s pleasure drive down from hotel to baths.”  If it was like other resorts, only Black men served as waiters in dining rooms.

42.  Her letter is quoted in the post for 18 October 2020.

43.  For more information on the WPA Slave Narratives project, see the post for 23 January 2019.

44.  Anne J. Bailey.  “Sherman’s March to the Sea.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  5 September 2002; last updated 26 October 2018.

45.  See the post for 23 January 2019 for more on Tartt.

46.  Michael J. Gagnon.  “Antebellum Industrialization.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  10 October 2003; last updated 28 August 2013.

47.  Item.  [Macon] Georgia Telegraph.   31 March 1857.  4.

48.  “Survey of African American Buildings and Sites in Mecklenburg County.”  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission website.  February 2016.  2.

49.  The Southern Business Directory and General Commercial Advertiser.  Charleston, South Carolina: Walker and James, 1854.  Section for Bibb County, Georgia, reprinted on “Georgia Directories.”  Genealogy Trails website.  Emphasis in original.

50.  Georgia.  766.
51.  1910 Census of Manufactures.  131.

52.  Lonnie J. Davis.  “Creek Indian Land Cessions.”  Ocmulgee National Monument website.

53.  Worsley.  241.

54.  Elizabeth B. Cooksey.  “Meriwether County.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  16 June 2006; last updated 18 July 2018.

The Lovejoys

Topic: CRS Version
Cooperative Recreation Service of Delaware, Ohio, first published the common version of “Kumbaya” in a songbook for a Columbus, Ohio, Methodist family Camp in 1955.  Lynn Rohrbough, owner of CRS, gave it wide exposure in January 1956 when he included it in a Song Sampler that he distributed free to promote his business. [1]

Mrs. Claire M. Lennon wrote Warren Chappell in November 1956 to suggest she was the source for the CRS version of “Kumbaya.” [2]  The letter was forwarded to Rohrbough, [3] who wrote her:

“There has been so much interest in this song that I would like to print a paragraph from your letter in one of our bulletins.  Would you want to tell us what county in Georgia you heard the song as a child?  Should we credit it to your mother or to your two grandmothers?” [4]

She immediately replied:

“I cannot rightfully say who to credit it to, inasmuch as both my grandmothers and mother sang it, and so did everyone else around.

“One grandmother lived in Merriweather Co. Ga, where I was born and lived summers until the age of 16, so I knew it then in and around Greenville, Warm Springs and Manchester.  The other grandmother lived in Monroe Co. - where 1 spent all my grammar school days (winters) in and around Forsyth.  I was in high school in Cordele (Crisp Co.), and from 16 on in Troup Co. - in and around Lagrange, and “Come By Here” was generally sung all around, and mostly among the rural folk.” [5]

Claire Marguerite Lovejoy was born in Bullochville, Georgia, in 1902, [6] so she learned “Come by Here” just before or after 1918.  This is the earliest report, so far, of the song’s existence.

Most of the places she mentioned are in the western Piedmont of Georgia.  The geographic province lies between the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the fall line that drops to the sedimentary soils of the coastal plain.  Its streams cut narrow beds through acidic hard rock deposited by erosion from the mountains. [7]

Members of the Creek Confederacy ceded lands east of the Oconee tributary to the Altamaha in 1783. [8]  It’s the area in the top right corner of the map to the right of Oconee County.  Edward Lovejoy moved to Jackson County from the South Carolina Piedmont [9] sometime after 1792. [10]

Land in the Piedmont varied in quality.  The soils nearer the dark fall line on the map “were a little richer, and the topography was less rugged” than those nearer the Blue Ridge. [11]  One of Edward’s sons [12] claimed land in Jasper County, east of Monroe County, [13] after land between the Altamaha tributaries was taken from the Creek in 1802. [14]

Another of Edward’s son moved to Clark County, [15] where James Lankford Lovejoy was born. [16]  They then migrated to land in Henry County.  It was in the 1821 Creek cession of lands between the Oculmulgee and Flint Rivers. [17]

When settlers arrived, the land was covered with oak forest, and subsistence agriculture prevailed. [18]  The fall line was the end of navigation on rivers that drained to the Atlantic at Darien, Georgia. [19]  On the Piedmont, rivers were too narrow for freight craft and some contained rapids. [20]

That began to change when the state built a railroad from Macon to Savannah in 1843 to compete with a South Carolina line that was diverting cotton shipments to Charleston.  A second road was constructed from Macon to Forsyth in Monroe County to portage the falls and tap cargoes that could be transported down the upper Oculmulgee.  A third rail link was completed to Atlanta in 1845. [21]

The Macon and Western passed near Lovejoy’s land, but he had sold out in 1835 to Thomas Crawford, [22] and moved to southern Georgia. [23]  The 1864 map below shows the general topography of the area, which the cartographers said was more wooded. [24]  Although they identified the location as Crawford, it was known locally as Lovejoy Plantation. [25]

Lovejoy Station was opened in 1850, [26] a few years before Clayton County was separated from Henry County in 1858. [27]

The opening of the rail line encouraged the growth of cotton as a cash crop.  The completion of a tunnel under Chetoogeta Mountain to Chattanooga in 1850 [28] made it possible to import food from Tennessee.  By the Civil War, “nearly all land devoted to grain crops” in Henry County “was put into cotton as well as any newly cleared land; commercial fertilizers became necessary to stimulate the production; and foodstuffs and stock feed as well as animal products, which heretofore had been produced in sufficient quantities for local needs, had to be purchased outside the counties.” [28]

When Georgia acquired Creek lands between 1805 and 1833, it platted them into lots of 202.5 acres and distributed them by lottery [30]  With the development of cotton as a commercial crop, some consolidation occurred.  By 1860, Crawford possessed a thousand acres, [31] the lots of five men.  He owned 32 slaves in 1850. [32]  The number grew to 46 in 1860. [33]

Crawford ranked eleventh in slave ownership in 1850, when men with 11 to 56 slaves represented just over 20% of the slave holders in the Henry County.  They possessed 57% of the 4,883 slaves.  Just under 60% of the slave owners had 1 to 5, the equivalent of a couple hired hands or a family.  The remaining 20% owned 6 to 10 chattel, or 22% of the total. [34]

M. Lovejoy reported eleven slaves in 1850 in Henry County, and J. L. Lovejoy had five. [35] Emmaline Heard, who was a slave in Henry County, claimed Roger Harper owned “a large number of slaves,” [36] while Charles Smith, also a slave in Henry County, remembered Jim Smith had “around one hundred and fifty, to two hundred Darkies.” [37]  The 1850 census showed both R. Harper and J. A. Smith with 24. [38]

Few people who were interviewed by the Federal Writer’s Project in the 1930s mentioned the sale of slaves.  Heard said her father was “born in Virginia, but was brought to Georgia and sold to the Harpers as a plow boy, at the age of eleven.” [39]  In Meriweather County, Lewis Favor recalled no one being sold by his owner, but he

“witnessed the selling of others on the auction block.  He says that the block resembled a flight of steps.  The young children and those women who had babies too young to be separated from them were placed on the bottom step, those in their early teens on the next, the young men and women on the next, and the middle-aged and old ones on the last one.  Prices decreased as the auctioneer went from the bottom step to the top one, that is, the younger a slave was the more money he brought if he was sold.” [40]

At Emancipation, then, the Lovejoy name existed for a town and rail station, a plantation, and for some descendants of Edward who remained in the Clayton County area.  One can make no guesses from this about the background of Claire’s grandfather.  All one can surmise is that, if he was 50 years old when she was born, he was an adolescent when the Civil War ended and had lived as a slave.

Graphics
1.  Base map from “Georgia County Outlines Map.”  Georgia Encyclopedia website.  Its source was the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia.

2.  Section of J. T. Dodge and Edward Ruger, United States War Department.  “Map V illustrating the Military Operations of the Atlanta Campaign.”  New York: American Photo-Lithographic Company, 1877.  Posted by David Rumsey Map Collection website.  This was brought to my attention by Larry Stanley.  “Henry Borrows from Clayton’s Heritage.”  December 2007.  The red lines are Confederate forces.

3.  Photographs of her appear on the "Photos K" tab and in the post for 28 October 2020.

End Notes
“WAS” refers to letters about “Kumbaya” in the corporate file of World Around Songs, the successor to Cooperative Recreation Service.  My access to this file and its current location are described in the post for 14 October 2020.

1.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press.  8 June 1959.  WAS.  Typed carbon.

2.  The letter to Chappell was not in the WAS file on “Kumbaya.”  More than likely, Rohrbough sent Chappell a bundle of the free songbooks that contained “Kumbaya.”  As mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020, Chappell then was working in the Methodist Church’s Youth Department in Nashville.  Chappell, in turn, may have provoked Lennon’s response when he forwarded some to her for use at the Allen School in Asheville, North Carolina, where she worked.

3.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Mrs. Lennon.  15 November 1956.  WAS.  Typed carbon.  “I am very happy to see a copy of the letter from you to Wallace Chappell about ‘Come By Here’.”

4.  Rohrbough.

5.  Claire M. Lennon.  Letter to Mr. Rohrbough.  19 November 1956.  WAS.  In both typescript and original handwritten letter.  Handwritten version used for quotation.  The post for 14 October 2020 has more information about this letter.

6.  Claire Lennon.  Obituary.  Asheville [North Carolina] Citizen-Times.  20 August 1992.  14.

7.  Frank B. Golley.  “Piedmont Geographic Region.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  28 June 2004; last updated 26 July 2017.

David D. Long.  “Soil Survey of Butts and Henry Counties, Georgia.”  831–854 in Field Operations of the Bureau of Soils, 1919.  Edited by Milton Whitney.  United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Soils,  1920.  841, on acidic nature of soils.

8.  Lonnie J. Davis.  “Creek Indian Land Cessions.”  Ocmulgee National Monument website.

9.  Chris and Jennifer Richardson. “Information about Edward Lovejoy.”  Genealogy website.  Last updated 10 June 2007.  The surname Lovejoy evolved from a nickname in England, and so it arose more than once. [41]  Edward’s grandfather, Josephus, migrated to Prince George’s County, Maryland, sometime after it became an Anglican crown colony. [42]

10.  Edward’s son Simeon was born in Fairfield County, South Carolina, in 1792. [43]
11.  Golley.

12.  The son, Eleazer Lovejoy, was listed by Gwyneth McNeil in her entry about Edward’s wife.  “Jemima Lovejoy”  Geni website.  Last updated 7 June 2019.  Jemima’s great-grandmother, Phoebe Lovejoy, migrated to Pennsylvania, married, and relocated to Charles County, Maryland. [44]

13.  Cemetery Walker.  “Eleazor Lovejoy.”  Find a Grave website.  28 December 2009.  He was born in 1781 in Fairfield County, South Carolina and died in 1842 in Jasper County, Georgia.

14.  Davis.  It was the Treaty of Fort Wilkinson.

15.  The southwestern section of Clark County seceded to form Oconee County in 1875. [45]

16.  Ann.  “James L. Lovejoy.”  Find a Grave website.  6 April 2011.  His obituary said: “He removed with his parents, John and Mary Lovejoy, to Henry county when but a child.”  The posts for Edward’s son John give no connecting information. [46]

17.  Davis.  It was the 1821 Treaty of Indian Springs.
18.  Long.  835.

19.  Darien is mentioned in the post for 3 February 2019 as the center of the post-Civil War lumber industry.

20.  “Geographic Regions of Georgia.”  Galileo website.

21.  Steve Storey.  “Railroads.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  3 November 2006; last updated 14 September 2018.  Technically, the train went to Marthasville.  The city became Atlanta in 1847. [47]

22. Richard Cloues and Kenneth H. Thomas, Jr.  “Crawford-Talmadge House.”  Nomination form for National Register of Historic Places Inventory prepared by Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Historic Preservation Section on 11 January 1980.

23.  Ann.  He moved to the section of Clinch County that later became Lanier County in 1920. [48]

24.  The Dodge and Ruger map has the note: “Although but little timber is shown, yet the whole Country is heavily timbered, with cleared ground in the immediate vicinity of the farm houses.”

25.  “Welcome to Clayton.”  US Gen Net website.  “The Lovejoy Plantation is believed to be the inspirational motivation for Margaret Mitchell’s fictional Wilkes family of Twelve Oaks.” [49]

26.  Wikipedia.  “Lovejoy, Georgia.”

27.  Joan H. Taylor.  “Clayton County.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  8 September  2004; last updated 18 September 2019.

28.  “Chetoogeta Tunnel Timeline.”  Whitefield County, Georgia, website.  Fertilizer, of course, came by train.

29.  Long.  836.
30.  Wikipedia.  “Georgia Land Lotteries.”
31.  Cloues.

32.  Joseph H. Moore, and Ancestors Unlimited Inc (Genealogical Society of Clayton County).  “Clayton - Henry County, Ga Slave Owner 1850 Census.”  US Gen Web website.

33.  Cloues.

34.  My calculations from Moore’s data.  This was nothing like Tom Spalding, who owned 350 slaves on Sapelo Island, Georgia, [50] or Jeremiah Brown who owned 540 in Sumter County, Alabama. [51]    
 
35.  Moore.  In Cinch County, where James moved, James L. Lovejoy listed two freed men, one 12 and one 19 years of age. [52]

36.   Emmaline Heard.  Interviewed by Minnie B. Ross for WPA’s Slave Narratives collection from Georgia. [53]  Revised by J. C. Russell on 26 January 1937.  2:125.

37.  Charlie Tye Smith.  Interviewed by Mary A. Crawford for WPA.  16 September 1936.  3:186.

38.  Moore.  J. C. Smith had 12 slaves, J. G. Smith had 5, J. Smith had 2, and J. A. Smith had 1.  The variance between statistics and memory may mean owners understated their slaves to census takers, or Moore’s data didn’t include all of Henry County, or children have different perceptions of the size of their communities than do adults.

39.  Heard.  2:125.
40.  Lewis Favor.  Interviewed by E. Driskell for WPA.  8 May 1937.  1:162.

41.  “Lovejoy History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms.”  House of Names website.

“Last name: Lovejoy.”  Surname Database website.

42.  “Josephus Joseph Lovejoy, Sr.”  Geni website.  Last updated 8 October 2015.

43.  Gwyneth McNeil.  “Edward M. Lovejoy.”  Geni website.  Last updated 16 November 2017.

44.  William Woodward Dixon.  The Mobeley’s and Their Connections.  1915.  12.
45.  Wikipedia.  “Clarke County, Georgia” and “Oconee County, Georgia.”

46.  “John Lovejoy.”  Geni website.  Last updated 30 November 2014.  This lists his parents, but not his wife or children.

47.  Wikipedia.  “Atlanta.”

48.  Elizabeth B. Cooksey.  “Lanier County.”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  16 June 2006; last updated 31 October 2018.

49.  Kenneth H. Thomas, Jr.  “Crawford-Dorsey House and Cemetery.”  Nomination form for National Register of Historic Places Inventory prepared by Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Historic Preservation Section on 7 May 1984.  The “neighborhood planters included Miss Mitchell’s great grandfather, Philip Fitzgerald.”  The name Fitzgerald appeared northwest of Crawford on the map.

50.  Buddy Sullivan.  “Thomas Spalding (1774-1851).”  New Georgia Encyclopedia website.  14 May 2003; last updated 21 February 2018.  He is discussed in the post for 9 June 2019.

51.  Tom Blake.  “Sumter County, Alabama: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census.”  Ancestry website.  Brown is discussed in the post for 23 August 2020.

52.  “Clinch County, GA: 1860 Census.  Schedule I, Free Inhabitants.”  Georgia Genealogy Web Project website.

53.  For more information on the WPA Slave Narratives project, see the post for 23 January 2019.

On the Trail of “Kumbaya”

Topic: CRS Version
Voices has just published an article I researched with John Blocher Jr called “Kumbaya and Dramatizations of an Etiological Legend.” [1]  The abstract appears on the Papers tab.

An etiological legend is a story that explains something.  In this case, I looked at ways people acted on their belief that “Kumbaya” was brought to this country by an American Protestant missionary sent to Africa.

In order to argue tales about an African genesis were legends, I needed to establish the American origins of the song.  This is the most important contribution made by the article.

I knew from my research for Camp Songs, Folk Songs, that the man who first published “Kumbaya” in its current form, Lynn Rohrbough, began by selling custom songbooks with material provided by his customers. [2]

I also knew from the collections I’d seen when I was a child that Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) published songs that already were in tradition, often with incorrect ascriptions.  That is, Rohrbough credited the person who gave him a song with being the composer.

For instance, “My Paddles Keen and Bright” was written by Margaret Bradshaw McGee in 1918 at the Camp Fire Girls’ first camp, Sebago-Wohelo. [3]  Rohrbough simply said it was “contrib. by Vera Hollenffer.” [4]  Whoever edited a later edition of a CFG songbook corrected this. [5]

Rohrbough later began inviting international students from local colleges to come to events at his recreation center in Delaware, Ohio, and taped songs they knew. [6]  Since I had learned he was not a musician, [7] I assumed he had to hire others to transcribe songs for him.

For example, he published a collection titled Aloha Sampler that included “Aloha means we welcome you.”  He said it was Hawaiian and “set down by Miss Haruka Yabusaki,” [8] and arranged by Max Exner in 1962. [9]

In fact, it was composed at Aloha Hive, a private girls’ camp in Vermont founded by Edward Leeds Gulick.  His brother was Luther Halsey Gulick.  Luther’s wife, Charlotte Vetter Gulick, ran Sebago-Wohelo in Maine.  The Gulick’s grandparents were Presbyterian ministers in Hawaii, and I was told there still were “numerous grass skirts in the costume room” at Aloha Hive. [10]

I reasoned, if Rohrbough hired someone like Exner to transcribe “Kumbaya,” he would have had to have written a check.  That meant business records, the backbone of our knowledge of ancient world economics. [11]  I wondered if any had survived.

Rohrbough sold CRS to a group in North Carolina in 1976, and the company name was changed to World Around Songs (WAS). [12]  It, in turn, sold the business to Bruce Greene.

I sent Greene an email asking if he had any business records.  He was a fiddle and banjo player [13] who had more important things to do than rummage through files.  Instead, he sent me a file of papers related to the song in April 2016. [14]

One thing was clear by then.  Actual business records no longer existed.  Back before computers, small businesses threw out old papers when their file cabinets became full.  Larry Nial Holcomb said “most of the business records before 1960” had been destroyed by the time he was interviewing Rohrbough for his 1972 dissertation. [15]  Since then they have been boxed up twice. [16]

Soon after the interim company took control, Marvin Frey sent CRS a letter threatening to sue for copyright infringement. [17]  Law suits are almost as good as ledgers in preserving mundane details from the past.  Most of the documents in the folder related to Frey.

However, they were a few earlier letters that had been saved by Rohrbough. [18]  One contained the sentence “Professor Chance of Baldwin-Wallace, who had it from Melvin Blake, a returned missionary from Angola, in the winter of 1954–55, had jotted down this mispronunciation to John Blocher, Jr., who first notated the song.” [19]

Names.  Like anyone who took a journalism class in high school, I went online to identify the people mentioned in the letter.  That’s how I discovered John Blocher.  He, indeed, was the man who transcribed the tune as we know it for a Columbus, Ohio, Methodist family camp songbook.

I listed him as a co-author because he not only gave me details on the early version of the song, but also began contacting people he knew, including a child of Katharine Thompson Good.  Good was the one who taught him the song.

Most of the people, who were mentioned in Rohrbough’s letter, were born in the early 1920s.  Their children were not of an age to know what their parents were doing when they were away from home in the 1950s.

I was still operating from the limited information I had about Rohrbough’s activities.  I asked Blocher if Good’s child remembered being taken to one of Rohrbough’s recreation open houses in Delaware.  I thought a 25-mile trip to a room filled with strangers might be something a child would remember.

He was told that Good never went to Delaware, but did attend annual meetings of the Buckeye Recreation Workshop.

Blake had an online presence.  He had been a Methodist missionary in Angola from 1948 to 1956, and later worked for the central office on missionary work for the church in New York.  He was important enough to merit several obituaries.

The problem with Blake was that, before airplanes made trans-Atlantic flights easy, most missionaries spent their entire periods in the field.  For him to be the source for “Kumbaya,” he had to have been in the United States sometime before 1955 when CRS published Blocher’s version of the song.

I sent an inquiry to the archives of the Methodist Church asking if there was any record of Blake being in the United States, particularly his home state of Indiana, in 1954.  Again, I got lucky.  Frances Lyons sent back a note saying “I found evidence in the files that Melvin Blake visited Indiana in 1952.” [20]

She sent me copies of letters from Blake’s file.  I did not ask for personal or denomination information, so I don’t know why he was in the country in 1952.  While it would be interesting, it probably would not be relevant to the history “Kumbaya.”

One of the letters indicated Blake was scheduled to speak at a church youth conference at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, that attracted thousands.  Any one of the participants could have been from Ohio, and later gone to the Buckeye Workshop meeting.

Thanks to the help of Blocher, Greene, and Lyons, I have a working hypothesis explaining how “Come by Here” crossed the color line to become “Kumbaya.”  The connecting links are still missing.  I don’t know who taught Blake “Come by Here,” and I don’t know who introduced it at the Buckeye Workshop.

These details may never be known.  This all happened almost seventy years ago.  Few who were adolescents or adults at the time still are alive.  When Blocher died last year, he was a hundred years old.

Voices is published by New York Folklore.  For that reason, I emphasized the contributions of people from that state: May Titus and Pete Seeger.  In the next few posts, which initiate a new series on the CRS version, I will provide more information on other people who contributed to the creation of what we now call “Kumbaya.”  Some of their photographs appear on the Photos K tab.

End Notes
1.  Copies may be ordered by email from info@nyfolklore.org or by regular mail from New York Folklore.  129 Jay Street.  Schenectady, New York.  12305.  It's $3.00 for a PDF of the article.  The draft, with corrections, additional photographs, and more detailed footnotes has been uploaded to the Academia.edu website.

2.  Camp Songs.  58.
3.  Camp Songs.  445.

4.  “Canoe Song.”  73 in Music Makers.  Published for the Camp Fire Girls by CRS.  I purchased my copy around 1955 when my mother was a CFG leader.  Vera Helgesson Hollenffer was a physical education teacher in San Francisco’s Lux School for Industrial Training for Girls in the 1930s. [21]

5.  Margaret Embers McGee.  “Canoe Round.”  73 in Music Makers.  Published for the Camp Fire Girls by CRS.  I bought my copy in Findlay, Ohio, around 1974.  Embers was a camp name.

6.  Ernest Amy.  “Cooperative Recreation Service: A Unique Project.”  Midwest Folklore 7:202–206:1957.  206.

7.  Larry Nial Holcomb said Rohrbough “did not begin singing until he was a high school student [. . .] and he never played an instrument.” [22]  His source was a letter from Lynn Rohrbough dated 17 February 1972.

8.  Yabusaki majored in physical education at the University of Hawaii where she was active in the YWCA.  She later worked for Honolulu’s Parks and Recreation department. [23]

9.  “What Aloha Means.”  3 in Aloha Sampler.  CRS, 1963, 1967.  It first appeared in the American Camping Association’s Tent and Trail Songs edited by Exner in 1962.  I learned it in a Wisconsin CFG camp in 1963 where it already was part of tradition, no doubt learned from other camps rather than from a CRS book.

10.  Camp Songs.  341.

11.  Wikipedia.  “History of Accounting.”  Business records date back to Mesopotamia.  I’ve often wondered what historians thought were when they finally were able to interpret ancient documents and discovered warehouse inventories rather than lost epics like Gilgamesh.

12.  H. Smith.  “Pocket Song Book Publishing Moved, Revitalized.”  [Yellow Springs, Ohio] Community Service Newsletter.  January–February 1977.  1–2.

13.  Greene has released five CDs of fiddle music [24] and performs at local festivals in North Carolina.  He went to college in Kentucky where he learned and has preserved local music traditions. [25]

14.  I scanned everything in the file and returned it to Greene.  I am not giving the names of people who were not directly involved in the transmission of “Kumbaya,” although I can provide them if necessary.

15.  Larry Nial Holcomb.  “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  104.

16.  At the time I was working with Greene, he was planning to transfer the papers to the Library of Congress.  That meant a third packing and unpacking.

17.  Marvin V. Frey.  Letter to Mr. Lynn Rohrbough, 6 June 1978.  Handwritten.  WAS files.

18.  I don’t know if Rohrbough started the file, or if the interim owner found them and started the file.  I rather suspect the first.  The letter I quoted was written when Rohrbough was answering questions from Fred Waring’s Shawnee Press about his prior rights.

19.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press.  16 February 1959.  Typed carbon.  WAS files.

20.  Frances Lyons.  Email, 2 June 2016.  She is Reference Archivist for the United Methodist Church Archives and History Center at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

21.  Camp Songs.  515.
22.  Holcomb.  14.
23.  Camp Songs.  341.
24.  The CDs are available from his website.
25.  “Bruce Greene.”  Blue Ridge Heritage Area website.

Lutheran Youth Alive - Kumbaya

 Topic: Religious Folk Music Revival
The Jesus Movement was a Pentecostal response to a specific social problem in California in 1967 and 1968. [1]  It faded with the crisis.

Meantime, the term and image of committed youth who did not isolate themselves from their society seeped into mainline denominations through the Charismatic Movement and Jesus Music.

The willingness to accept electrified musical instruments often coincided with an openness to non-traditional spiritual experiences.

For instance, the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood booked Larry Norman [2] in its coffeehouse when he still was unknown.  Presbyterians were the first to convene a commission on speaking in tongues.  As mentioned in the post for 27 September 2020, the General Assembly accepted the manifestations in 1970 with some caveats on interpretations.

Likewise, charismatic activity appeared among Roman Catholics at Duquesne University in 1967.  The church established a committee that would have had a difficult time suppressing the movement while it preached the miracles of saints.  It only wished to keep interpretations in the hands of the clergy. [3]  The Vatican’s Sacrosanctum Concilium already had encouraged parishes to use contemporary instruments along with singing in local languages in 1963. [4]

Lutherans split along historic, ethnic boundaries.  The Missouri Synod, controlled by conservatives since 1969, ruled in 1973 that speaking in tongues was not consistent with “Lutheran theology and practice.” [5]  Some of the other synods, which were created by immigrants who had been exposed to revivals in Europe, were more open than those that were formed by individuals who came from areas where state churches were dominant.

Dave Anderson formed Lutheran Youth Encounter in 1965 and Lutheran Youth Alive in 1969 to reach youth with teams of college students performing music accompanied by acoustic guitars.  In 1972 he edited a collection of Jesus Style Songs that included Bob MacKenzie’s version of “Kumbaya” along with Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” and compositions by people involved with Calvary Chapel. [6]

The Joyous Celebration made an album of the songs in 1974.  Most were accompanied by an acoustic guitar; some used a piano. [7]  A photograph of the group showed them using an electric guitar or bass as well in 1973. [8]  The songs were short and usually fast paced.  Most were sung in unison.  They drew on traditions of hymn singing and country music.

Teams like Anderson’s had been pioneered by Methodists in 1939. [9]  They sent Caravans of college students with an adult counselor to local churches during the summer.  Two young men and two young women spent three days in a community where they boarded with local parishioners, while they worked with the Vacation Bible schools and youth fellowship groups. [10]

Methodists wished to spread games and folk dances as alternatives to social dancing. [11]  Moral Re-Armament’s Up with People used the same model in 1966, but with the goal of wooing youth away from liberal political movements. [12]  Anderson had gone to Mexico in 1959 with a Gospel Crusaders team sponsored by the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement (LEM), and spent the summer of 1962 in Latin America with a Youth for Christ group. [13]  Both were interested in converting people to Christianity.

Lutheran Youth Encounter began with a vision Anderson had telling him to take a gospel team to Scandinavia. [14]  In 1967, the group sent college-age teams to congregations and camps in this country. [15]

The group was not universally accepted by Lutheran churches.  One member was reprimanded by Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, in 1967 for using material prepared by Campus Crusade for Christ. [16]

Anderson resigned in 1968 [17] to move to California to work as youth director for the Central Lutheran Church of Van Nuys, California. [18]  That placed him near the epicenter of the Jesus Movement.  He became friends with Don Williams [19] and visited the Salt Box coffeehouse. [20]

Youth Alive used the same caravan model to send teams to Lutheran churches.  Richard Laux remembered one who came to his church in rural Idaho in 1970:

“The five youths on this team spoke about an experience they had had receiving the ‘baptism of the Spirit’ which was, according to their recounting, the same thing that the followers of Jesus experienced on Pentecost.” [21]

Anderson’s father was active in the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement, [22] which was a lay group that believed following church rituals was not enough.  Individuals needed to have personal religious experiences that caused them to repent and commit to Christ.  LEM’s founders had come from synods influenced by a Norwegian pietist, Hans Nielsen Hauge, and the Swede, Carl Olof Rosenius. [23]

While Anderson was active with Lutheran Youth Alive, politics was roiling the Lutheran synods.  The pietists had been outnumbered when the Hauge Synod merged with others to form the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America in 1917.  Their influence was further diminished when that church merged into the American Lutheran Church in 1960.

In a later songbook, Anderson quoted another Lutheran who said:

“Music prepares the heart for worship and commitment.  Music is the greatest mood alternator of all, and unlocks the ministry of God in the untrespassed soil of a person’s soul.  People love singing.  They love being moved even when there is not a song in their hearts.” [24]

A Missouri Synod pastor cited that reference before condemning Anderson:

“Note what is being said here and what is not being said.  Holy Scripture declares that it is
the Word of the Lord that prepares the heart for worship and commitment.  Here the claim is that music is a substitute Means of Grace, unlocking the human heart for God.” [25]

Another theologian at the Missouri Synod’s Concordia Seminary Saint Louis saw the same Anderson quotation as an example of contemporary pietism. [26]

Anderson left Lutheran Youth Alive in 1974 to tour with his wife, [26] and found a music-worship ministry that was independent of denominational influence. [28]  He told a reporter in 2017 that the “Jesus revival of the ‘70s” was “one of the greatest moves of the Holy Spirit, and we haven’t seen anything like it since.” [29]

Performers
Same as Bob MacKenzie’s Now Sing Now discussed in post for 26 July 2020.

Credits
None given

Notes on Lyrics
Same as Bob MacKenzie’s Now Sing Now discussed in post for 26 July 2020.

Notes on Music
Same as Bob MacKenzie’s Now Sing Now discussed in post for 26 July 2020.

Notes on Performance
The songbook and album covers featured a head of Christ in a circle against a yellow background.  Behind Him were white clouds signifying He was in Heaven.

It had a spiral binding.  “Kumbaya” was paired with “Lord, I Want To Be a Christian.  The latter was described as an “American folk song.”

Audience Perceptions
Jonathan Anderson said the “lyrical melodies, close harmonies, and syncopated rhythms” of Lutheran Youth Alive “proved tame enough to be accepted by church elders yet modern enough to draw crowds on college campuses.  Some songs – and even a few Lutheran teams – accentuated rhythm more than others, but rarely did any cross the line into rock ’n’ roll.” [30]

He added: “the simple messages of singalong and campfire songs [. . .] enabled participants to join the expression of personal faith. [. . .] woven throughout the Gospel teams’ music was a gentle appeal to commit one’s life to the Lord. [. . .] above everything else, the overarching theme of the Gospel teams’ music was experiential faith through a personal relationship with God in Christ.” [31]

Observers from Westmont College said Lutheran Youth Alive was “‘quietly charismatic,’ but they do not make tongues the focal point of the organization.  Nor are they excessively apocalyptic.” [32]

Notes on Movement
Joyous Celebration was organized at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Seattle by Don Fladland.  The women (Pat Bodin, Pam Edmunds, Marion Matthews) were wearing pant suits with bell bottoms in the photograph; one had long, straight hair, and the Black woman had an Afro.  The hair of the men (Rick Goudzwaard, John Lee, Dan Nelson) fell between their earlobes and their collars.

All were standing or sitting erect with their weight evenly placed on both feet.  The exception was the African American.  Matthews had her weight on her back leg, with her front leg bent at the knee.  She bent forward slightly the waist, while she was playing a small tambourine.

Notes on Performers
David L. C. Anderson’s father Clifford was a Lutheran pastor ordained by a founder of the Lutheran Evangelistic Movement. [33]  Evald Conrad’s father had migrated from Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century. [34]  Clifford served churches in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. [35]

Anderson attended Norwegian schools influenced by Haugeans.  His high school was Augustana Academy in Canton, South Dakota. [36]  It had been founded by the Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod, [37] after it parted with the Haugean Scandinavian Augustana Synod over use of the Book of Concord. [38]  Until the 1960 merger, it was run by the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America. [39]

Next, Anderson attended Augsburg College in Minneapolis. [40]  It had been run by the Haugean Lutheran Free Church, [41] who left the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America because they felt slighted by the agglomerated institution. [42]

His most recent activity has been Shepherd’s Canyon Retreat in Arizona.  He helped establish it in 2007 as a center for helping pastors who were “experiencing stress, depression, and many kind of conflicts as the result of ‘being in ministry’.” [43]  He raises money to support it with his concerts. [44]

Availability
Book: “Kumbaya.”  The New Jesus Style Songs Volume 1.  Edited by David L. C. Anderson.  Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1973.  58.

End Notes
1.  The Jesus Movement was discussed in the post for 27 September 2020.
2.  The Hollywood church and  Norman were discussed in the post for 4 October 2020.
3.  Wikipedia.  “Charismatic Movement.”

4.  Rebecca Chase.  “History of Hymns: ‘Sent Forth by God's Blessing’.”  United Methodist Church Discipleship website.   22 August 2019.

5.  Vinson Synan.  The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition.  Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition.  259.

6.  Calvary Chapel was discussed in the posts for 27 September 2020 and 4 October 2020.  It included Marsha Stevens’ “For Those Tears I Died,” and seven songs written by Debby Kerner.  At least 19 of the 124 songs were written by Youth Alive members, including four by Jean Wahlstrom, and two each by Henry Ehlen, John Lee, and Tom Rosoff.

7.  The Joyous Celebration.  Jesus Style Songs.  Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1974.  23-1655.  Vinyl LP.

8.  Jonathan D. Anderson.  Fifty Thousand Evangelists: Lutheran Youth in the Jesus Revolution.  Self published, 2019.  60.

9.  Grady L. E. Carroll.  “Kern, Paul Bentley.”  NC Pedia website.  1988.  Credit was given to Kern and E. O. Harbin, who was discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.

10.  Item.  The Crowley [Louisiana] Post-Signal.  17 July 17 1954.  2.  It probably was paraphrasing a press release.  Similar language appeared in other papers without the founding date.

11.  “Speaking of Pictures . . . Methodists Substitute ‘Play-Party Games’ for Dancing.”  Life 21:12–14:19 August 1964.  The importance of dance alternatives and the contribution of Lynn Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service were discussed in the post for 9 February 2020.

12.  It is discussed in the post for 23 February 2020.
13.  Jonathan Anderson.  14.
14.  Jonathan Anderson.  15.
15.  Jonathan Anderson.  20.

16.  Jonathan Anderson.  26–27.  The student, Walter Kallestad, asked Arthur H. Grimstad, the one professor involved with LEM, to speak with the president.  Joseph L. Knutson, who was a Haugean “by upbringing and temperament,” encouraged them.

17.  Jonathan Anderson.  31.
18.  Jonathan Anderson.  32.

19.  Ronald M. Enroth, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., and C. Breckinridge Peters.  The Jesus People. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eermans Publishing Company, 1972.  148.

20.  Edward E. Plowman.  The Jesus Movement in America.  Elgin, Illinois: David C. Cook Publishing Company, 1971.  57.

21.  Richard Laux and Ben Lunis.  Get Out of the Box.  Maitland, Florida: Xulon Press, 2003.  530.  The section was written by Laux.

22.  Jonathan Anderson.  14.

23.  Thomas E. Jacobson.  “Hauge’s Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Synod in America and the Continuation of the Haugean Spirit in Twentieth-Century American Lutheranism.”  PhD dissertation.  Luther Seminary, 2018.  300.  The word pietist did not imply a withdrawal from the world, like the Amish.  Hauge encouraged his rural followers to start their own businesses and take control of their economic situations.  Jacobson  thought that emphasis was one reason so many early immigrants had been influenced by his teachings. [45]

24.  Dick Hamlin.  Quoted by Dave Anderson.  The Other Songbook.  Phoenix, Arizona: The Fellowship Publications, 1987 edition.  Untitled preface.  The collection did not include “Kumbaya.”

25.  Harold L. Senkbeil.  “Current Trends in Church Music: Toward a Theological Appraisal.”  Lecture at Concordia University Wisconsin.  1992.  He chose Anderson as his example because the Wall Street Journal recently had quoted Anderson in an article on the use of contemporary music in churches. [46]

26.  John T. Pless.  “Liturgy and Pietism: Then and Now.”  Pieper Lecture at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.  18 September 1998.

27.  Jonathan Anderson.  95.

28.  “What is Fellowship Ministries?”  Its website said it was a “non-profit ministry whose mission is to provide relevant worship resources, encouragement and training for advancing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

29.  Patti Slattery.  “Standing Stones Retreat Center Ministers to Ministers.  The Wickenburg [Arizona] Sun website.  21 March 2017.

30.  Jonathan Anderson.  65.
31.  Jonathan Anderson.  66.  Emphasis in original.
32.  Enroth.  149.
33.  Jonathan Anderson.  14.

34.  Wiggie the Elder.  “Evald Johnson Conrad.”  Find a Grave website.  29 September 2013.

Joanne.  “Rev Swan Johnson.”  Find a Grave website.  19 Dec 2013; updated by Find a Grave.  He was Evald’s father.

35.  Item announcing Anderson’s appearance.  Sunday bulletin.  Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church, Pierre, South Dakota.   21 May 2017.  13.

36.  Pierre, South Dakota.

37.  Wikipedia.  “Augustana Academy.”  The name was shortened to Norwegian Augustana Synod.

38.  Wikipedia.  “Norwegian Augustana Synod.”
39.  Wikipedia, Augustana Academy.
40.  Saint Pierre.
41.  Wikipedia.  “Augsburg University.”
42.  Wikipedia.  “Lutheran Free Church.
43.  Fellowship Ministries.
44.  Slattery.
45.  Jacobson.  48.

46.  David Anderson.  Quoted by R. Gustav Niebuhr.  “So It Isn’t Rock of Ages, It is Rock, And Many Love It.”  The Wall Street Journal.  19 December 1991.  1.