Topic: CRS Version
Melvin Blake spent much of the summer of 1952 in Indiana. His son remembers the family stayed “at Epworth Forest for a week or two (probably two) in the summer of 1952. I am sure of this because I was there with him and I remember that many people were wearing ‘I Like Ike’ T-shirts and Eisenhower was running for president.” [1]
Epworth Forest was founded in 1922 [2] as a summer resort for Methodists in Kosciusko County, Indiana. [3] The Presbyterian’s Winona Lake, where Billy Sunday held forth, was about 15 miles away. The organizers platted 422 lots, [4] and sold 32 immediately. Twenty-three were on the lake. [5]
A hotel and auditorium soon were built [6] for the annual, week-long, camp meeting. Methodist women held their own meetings during that week, and men began organizing retreats in 1934. [7] Men also created the first camp for young boys, [8] and women managed programs for young children.
The Church primarily was concerned with the week-long senior institutes held for high school students during other weeks in the summer. These began as Epworth League conventions in 1916. [9] They had their own song leaders, and, in 1920, Friday evenings were devoted to stunts. [10]
Methodist clergymen viewed the Epworth League with the same suspicion as Lutheran’s had the youth-organized Walther League, discussed in the post for 21 June 2020. William Freeland noted local ministers became more active in 1931. The institutes were divided into smaller groups, spread over more weeks. By 1934, Friday evenings were devoted to Decision Services when youth were expected to commit themselves to the church. [11]
The Methodist Episcopal Church became The Methodist Church after the 1938 merger with the Southern denomination, and the Epworth League became the Methodist Youth Fellowship. At Epworth Forest, the secretary of the North Indiana Conference Board of Education took over all the administrative functions at Epworth Forest 1944. Previously, different people had handled the institutes, rentals, and camp meetings. [12]
The role of lay organizations was diminished. [13] Jane Donovan believed the national church used the merger as a pretext for eliminating groups like the women’s missionary group that employed May Titus. [14] While that seems likely, some of these changes ensued from the professionalization of the leadership. In Shul with a Pool, David Kaufman noted that, once the United States began producing its own rabbis, they transferred lay activities, like settlement houses and summer camps, to their control in synagogues. [15]
These changes reduced the opportunities for informal singing. Orrin Manifold remembered some song leader had once taught one about “Alice” who was so thin she washed down the bathtub drain. [16] He added, approvingly, Varner “Chance wasted no time on such foolishness. In the course of five short class periods and one extra practice he had most choirs ready to present a program of sacred music by Friday night.” [17]
Of course, high school-aged students are able to work around such restraints. One woman remembered “it wasn’t just the opportunity to be on stage for the Friday night musical that brought girls to choir practice every day [. . .] Maybe they would get a solo and get to practice with alone with the organist. He was so cute and so much fun.” [18]
Adults, freed of direct oversight by the church, no doubt also socialized. Blake most likely rented or borrowed a cottage from a friend. With the return of prosperity in the early 1950s, Manifold indicated a group was organized to ensure the quality of the lake by buying rights to the dam, and private cottages were being improved and used for longer periods of time. [19]
Both Blake and his wife would have known some of these summer residents from the late 1940s. The most important may have been the secretary of the Board of Education. George Fenstermacher had been dean of male students at Taylor University when they were students there.
Fenstermacher’s family seems to have moved to Pennsylvania from the Palatinate in 1738. [20] By 1895, his parents were living near Findlay, Ohio. [21] When George was born in 1899, they were in Cleveland [22] where his father worked as a cabinet maker. [23] In high school, he sang tenor in the boy’s glee club. [24]
Fenstermacher’s older brother, who later became a Methodist minister in Indiana, suggested he join him as a student at Taylor. After graduating in 1922, George remained in Upland where he taught German and violin. [25] When the Blakes were in school, he still was directing the orchestra.
Fenstermacher apparently remained a musician at heart. His résumé always mentioned he had studied with Walter Logan and Richard Czerwonky. [26] The first taught violin to working-class children at the Cleveland Music School Settlement. [27] The second taught violin at the Bush Conservatory in Chicago. [28] One assumes Fenstermacher met him while he as taking classes for his master’s degree from the University of Chicago. [29]
The histories of Epworth Forest do not mention mundane social activities. One can only guess Fenstermacher entertained the Blakes at his home or in some camp room, and that others may have been present. If this were the case, one can speculate that this could have been the time Blake passed on his version of “Come by Here.” Old habits do not die: if Fenstermacher had asked him to sing, Blake would have done so. [30]
End Notes
1. Paul Blake. Email, 16 October 2020.
2. William B. Freeland. Epworth Forest. North Indiana Conference of The Methodist Church, 1949. 1–51 in Freeland and Orrin Manifold. Epworth Forest: The First Fifty Years. Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1974. 7.
3. The location is shown on the map with the post for 28 February 2021.
4. Freeland. 8.
5. Freeland. 9.
6. Freeland. 9.
7. Freeland. 34.
8. It sounds like this camp followed in the tradition of one of the first private camps for boys. Ernest Berkeley Balch began by offering outings for bored “boys belonging to well-to-do families in summer hotels” in 1881. [31]
9. Freeland. 2.
10. Freeland. 4. As mentioned in the post for 9 February 2020, E. O. Harbin published a collection of games and stunts for the Epworth League of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1923. [32]
11. Freeland. 42. Decisions were not conversions. This is similar to the emphasis of the Lutheran camp that Janet Lynn attended in Wisconsin. The skater is discussed in the post for 16 October 2018.
12. Freeland. 47.
13. Freeland. 50.
14. Jane Donovan. “But Gideon Refused: The Institutionalization of Methodist Mission.” West Virginia University, The American Religious Experience website. The effects of the merger on the once female-controlled Scarritt College are mentioned in the post for 16 May 2021. Titus is mentioned in the post for 1 November 2020.
15. David Kaufman. Shul with a Pool. Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1999. Many of the settlement houses were organized by women. Some are discussed in Camp Songs, Folk Songs, including the Jewish one in Cleveland, Ohio.
16. Fourteen individuals or camps voluntarily mentioned “Alice” in a 1976 survey done for Camp Songs, Folk Songs.
17. Orrin Manifold. “Epworth Forest: The Second 25 Years.” 52–122 in Freeland and Manifold. 88. Chance is discussed in the posts for 21 March 2021 and 28 March 2021.
18. Nancy Heche. The Truth Comes Out. Ventura, California: Regal, 2006. 46. She was born in 1937, [33] so would have been at Epworth Forest around 1953.
19. Manifold. 59.
20. The best documented migrant is Johann Matthais Fenstermacher who landed in Philadelphia with his sons, each of whom had a number of sons. [34] However, Fenstermacher is a common name that first appeared in Bohemia, [35] so George’s ancestors could have arrived later.
21. OPPSheryl. “Russell Anbert Fenstermacher.” Find a Grave website, 12 September 2011. This is George’s brother.
22. Scott Shoup. “George Edwin Fenstermacher.” Find a Grave website, 6 April 2013.
23. “Charles P. Fenstermacher.” The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 19 June 1950. This is George’s father.
24. Cleveland, Ohio, East High School Annual. Volume for 1917 edited by Robert D. Moore. 115.
25. Dwight Mikkelson. “Remembering George Fenstermacher. Taylor: A Magazine for Taylor University Alumni and Friends 88:17:Autumn 1996.
25. The Gem. Taylor University yearbooks for 1939, 1940, 1942, and no doubt other years I did not check.
27. Logan began teaching at the Cleveland Music School Settlement in 1912. He later helped founded the Cleveland Orchestra. [36]
28. Czerwonky began teaching violin at the Bush Conservatory of Music in 1918. [37] It was run by the Bush and Gerts Piano Company. [38] He later became associated with the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra. [39]
29. Mikkelson. One assumes Fenstermacher spent his summers in Chicago between 1927 and 1934 when he earned his degree.
30. One also guesses Fenstermacher impressed Blake into speaking at general assemblies or classes on his work in Angola.
31. Ernest Berkley Balch. Letter to Porter Sargent, quoted in volume 5 of his The Handbook of Private Schools, reprinted on Balchipedia website and quoted in Camp Songs, Folk Songs. 218.
32. E. O. Harbin. Phunology: A Collection of Tried and Proved Plans for Play, Fellowship, and Profit. Nashville, Tennessee: Cokesbury Press, 1923.
33. Wikipedia. “Nancy Heche.”
34. “Johann Matthais Fenstermacher.” Geni website, 13 September 2017.
35. “Fenstermacher History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms.” House of Names website.
36. William Osborne. Music in Ohio. Kent: Kent State University Press, 2004. 135.
37. “Czerwonky, Richard, 1886-1949.” Northwestern University Archival and Manuscript Collections website.
38. Wikipedia. “Bush Conservatory of Music.”
39. Northwestern University.
Sunday, May 30, 2021
Melvin Blake - Epworth Forest
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Melvin Blake - National Methodist Conference on Youth
Topic: CRS Version
The source for Lynn Rohrbough’s version of “Kumbaya” not only had to learn it directly or indirectly from an African American, but had to pass it on. As mentioned in the post for 4 November 2011, we know May Titus learned the song from Claire Lovejoy Lennon, but have no evidence she taught it to others.
Melvin Blake was more likely than she to be a conduit because he was known to be a singer. Although they were limited, there may have been opportunities for him to hear “Come by Here” when he was in Nashville during the 1951–1952 school year.
Blake was on furlough from his work as a missionary in Angola. During those supposed rest periods, most missionaries made an effort to speak to churches about their work and, by the bye, raise money. For instance, Blake appeared at a Greenfield, Indiana, church in August. [1] It was about 60 miles from where he was staying in Eaton, Indiana.
Blake also fulfilled institutional obligations like a strategy meeting at DePauw University. [2] In June, he was at Wittenberg College. [3] He probably was attending a conference on Africa organized by the National Council of Churches. The attendees included representatives from the United Nations and government representatives along with “missionaries, university professors and students, anthropologists and teachers.” [4]
These meetings, especially the three-day meeting in Ohio, no doubt offered ample opportunities for people to socialize. However, singing may not have been part of the informal activities.
A more likely conclave was the Methodist national youth conference held at Purdue University in August. While he was a Wittenberg, Ralph Dodge’s Mission Board office in New York told him:
“There is to be a Christian Youth Conference at Purdue in Lafayette, Indiana, August 25-30 which we are inviting you to attend as a guest of the Division. You will be the only missionary from this Division, but we are asking several Crusade Scholars.” [5]
The meeting attracted five thousand young people. [6] With that many people, the program had to be tightly scheduled to prevent problems arising from idleness. Larry Eisenberg was the song leader for fifteen minutes every morning. He remembered:
“I timed each song, and we sang without books or notes because if the ones in the back were looking down, they got off by a full beat.” [7]
I haven’t been able to find a schedule for the 1952 conference. In fact the only one I found online was from 1940. Each day began with 15 minutes of organ music, followed by a 15 minute worship service. Recreation was slotted every afternoon, with a 15 minute community sing most evenings and a party the last night for those between 17 and 25 years of age. [8]
One assumes there were similar opportunities for informal singing in 1952.
Blake’s involvement in the program may have been a speech or workshop on Christian missions, or possibly a booth for dispensing information. He certainly would have been attentive to the international ministerial students sponsored as Crusade Scholars. Beyond that, it is impossible to know if he would have been asked to lead a song anywhere.
End Notes
Frances Lyons of The United Methodist Church (UMC) archives at Drew University sent me copies of letters to and from Blake written in the summer of 1952.
1. “African Missionary To Give Account Of Methodist Work.” The Daily Reporter, Greenfield, Indiana, 11 August 1952. 1.
2. Ralph E. Dodge. Letter to Rev. Melvin Blake, Scarritt College, 28 May 1952. Typed original, UMC.
Charles Melvin Blake. Letter to Dr. Ralph E. Dodge, 26 May 1952. Typed original, UMC.
3. Ralph Dodge’s administrative assistant. Letter to Mr. Melvin Blake, Wittenberg College, 19 June 1952. Typed original, UMC.
4. Preston King Sheldon. “Africa to Be Topic of Church Session.” The New York Times, 7 June 1952. 15. Quotation from “North American Assembly on African Affairs.” Page 250 in unidentified source on Cambridge Core website.
5. Dodge’s administrative assistant.
6. Eisenberg, Larry. 1992. “It’s Me, O Lord.” Tulsa, Oklahoma: Fun Books. 59. A local newspaper reported more than a thousand. [9]
7. Eisenberg. 59.
8. Thomas R. Pendell, executive secretary of The National Council of Methodist Youth. Letter to all persons connected with the leadership of the 1940 National Conference of Methodist Youth, 27 June 1940. Typed. The on-line PDF file includes the schedule.
9. “People To Meet At Purdue.” The Daily Banner, Greencastle, Indiana, 21 August 1952.
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Melvin Blake - Scarritt College
Topic: CRS Version
There is no proof Melvin Blake is the source for “Kumbaya,” only the comment by Lynn Rohrbough mentioned in the post for 4 October 2020. A circumstantial case can be made, but it all comes down to character and opportunity.
Blake meets the minimum requirement for the person who passed on “Kumbaya”: he was a life-long singer. He sang in college, [1] organized a choir while he was in working in Angola, [2] and joined a men’s chorus after he retired. [3]
However, Blake’s family is not sure that he would have attended meetings where he might have heard “Come by Here,” or that it would have passed it on. Some do not think it likely he would have taken on such a leadership role. Others think he was not one to hide his musical talents.
That leaves it to the institutions where he may have heard or joined singing: Scarritt College during the 1951–1952 school year, the Methodist youth conference at Purdue University in 1952, and Epworth Forest in northeastern Indiana.
The most important fact about Scarritt is that it was in Nashville, Tennessee, where a copy of “Oh, Lord, Come by Here” was published in 1934 with the melody that was modified by John Blocher after it had been corrupted in oral transmission. [4]
Walter Meader, the arranger of “Come by Here,” was active in a small Pentecostal church in the city. As mentioned in the post for 9 May 2021, a Church of God minister reprinted Meador’s arrangement the next year in Cleveland, Tennessee, near Chattanooga. [5] This Pentecostal denomination was begun by Robert Spurling.
Scarritt was founded by women in the Methodist Episcopal Church South to support their missionary efforts. In the Congo, they supplied the nurses and teachers for the mission at Minga in Katanga province. [6]
During the Depression, Scarritt began thinking about the needs of rural churches. In 1942, it opened a training center in Cumberland County, [7] mountain miles from Cleveland and Nashville, that offered short-term training programs and operated a demonstration farm. [8] Any student could have introduced the Meador song in Crossville.
In 1942, [9] with the merger of the Northern and Southern churches, the women’s school came under control of The Methodist Church. In 1943, a Northern man, Hugh Stuntz, was appointed president. [10] The transition occurred during World War II, when financial contributions were smaller. [11]
Like any Northerner, Stuntz was interested in upgrading the quality of the school, within the limits of his budget. It only had been accredited in 1940, [12] and many of its academic programs included courses at Vanderbilt University and George Peabody College for Teachers.
Stuntz closed the rural education center in 1950, and transferred the real estate to the local church conference. The Nashville campus took over the rural mission work. [13]
In its place, he initiated the graduate program in anthropology [14] in which Blake was a student. He took some of his classes at Vanderbilt, [15] but would have met no African Americans in them.
Tennessee’s segregation laws had become more stringent in 1942. [16] Two Blacks had sued the state for admission to graduate programs at the University of Tennessee on the grounds the state did not provide equivalent programs for them. The judge ruled that simply meant Tennessee had some unfulfilled obligations. [17]
This ruling complicated Scarritt’s relationships with local Black colleges. Alice Cobb said that, while African Americans no longer could take classes, they were not completely forbidden from coming to the campus. The school often hosted meetings of national organizations that “could not meet and find housing together for their white and black members anywhere else in the area.” [18]
Blake probably would have had no contact with these people. He was not living in a dormitory, but in a house with his wife and family. This, along with the time required to prepare for this classes, probably kept him at home.
The one exception may have been the social events sponsored by the church. If the church that served the campus area had weekly fellowship meetings, he no doubt would have felt compelled to attend most weeks. People in other places have indicated informal singing was part of the fellowship meetings they attended: Claire Lovejoy Lennon, who taught Titus “Come by Here,” sang it in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1957, [19] while a Camp Fire leader in my Michigan hometown remembered singing “Kumbaya” later. [20]
This seems the most likely place for Blake to have heard either Meador’s version of “Come by Here,” or a version that preceded or followed his. Although it is not clear what happened to the employees of the Crossville center, some may have transferred to Nashville. They certainly would have come to meetings, as would people from rural areas.
The Board on Missionary Education, which employed Titus, had built its headquarters building near the campus. [21] Certainly Blake would have attended meetings, and possibly social functions there. This would have been another place visiting Blacks or whites could have passed on “Come by Here.”
A more celebratory event would have been Rural Life Sunday. It had begun in the 1930s under the sponsorship of the Federal Council of Churches on the fifth Sunday after Easter. [22] That would have been May 18 in 1952.
Cobb indicated that after Stuntz closed the rural life program, the school began working with local Black churches. She remembered:
“In the 1950s it was almost unheard of for black people and white people, especially rural people, to meet for worship services and to break bread together. The Scarritt Rural Life Sunday, an annual affair with dinner together in the Susie Gray Dining Hall, followed by integrated workshops, was a startling innovation.” [23]
This would just have been beginning when Blake was at Scarritt, but it would have been one possible place for him to hear local Black religious music in the segregated South.
If Blake heard “Come by Here” from someone involved with rural outreach at a Scarritt College social function, it is possible Titus heard it at the same time. Since the song would have been new to her, she may have asked Lennon about it. This hypothetical request would have occurred after 1952, and be fresher in Lennon’s memory when she wrote to Rohrbough in 1956.
End Notes
1. See post for 28 February 2021.
2. See post for 7 March 2021.
3. See post for 14 March 2021.
4. This version is reprinted in the post for 9 May 2021.
5. This is the Church of God associated with Robert Spurling and Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson.
6. Christie R. House. “Minga Hospital.” Methodist Mission 200 website. The Northern Methodist Episcopal Church had no parallel institution. May Titus took her classes at the Hartford Seminary. [24] Blake was sent to the Kennedy School for his preliminary missionary training. [25]
7. Alice Cobb. “Yes, Lord, I’ll Do It”: Scarritt’s Century of Christian Service. Nashville, Tennessee: Scarritt College, 1987. 54–55.
8. Cobb. 67.
9. The merger became official in 1939, but took time. Boston University has records of the Southern women’s group through 1942. [26]
10. Cobb. 61.
11. Albert L. Gray, Jr. “Methodist Membership and Financial Contributions Before and After Unification.” Methodist History 3:43–47:October 1964. 44.
12. Cobb. 52.
13. Cobb. 67.
14. Cobb. 66.
15. “African Missionary To Give Account Of Methodist Work.” The [Greenfield, Indiana] Daily Reporter. 11 August 1952. 1.
16. Cobb. 53.
17. “State ex Rel. Michael v. Witham.” Case Text website. The case was decided by David William DeHaven on 7 November 1942.
18. Cobb. 74.
19. Claire M. Lennon. Letter to Mr. Rohrbough. 19 November 1956. WAS. In typescript version only. The post for 14 October 2020 has more information about this letter.
20. Lucille Parker Munk. Interview, fall 1974. She is profiled in Camp Songs, Folk Songs.
21. Cobb. 63.
22. Kevin M. Lowe. “Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural Community, 1910-1970.” PhD dissertation. The Pennsylvania State University, December 2013. 104–105.
23. Cobb. 68.
24. For more on Titus, see post for 1 November 2020.
25. See post for 7 March 2021.
26. “Missions on Microfilm.” Boston University website.
Sunday, May 9, 2021
Walter Awood Meador - Oh, Lord, Come by Here
Topic: CRS Version
Walter Awood Meador published the first version of the 1-3-5 melody in 1934. In addition to the tune, his first three verses had the same themes that would appear in the version of “Kum Ba Yah” published by Cooperative Recreation Service in 1955.
It began with the traditional “somebody needs you.” This was followed by “somebody’s praying” and “somebody’s happy.” The CRS verses were “someone’s crying,” “someone’s singing” and “someone’s praying.”
Meador claimed to have written the lyrics and arranged the melody, and that is probably true. The first three verses use the statement-refrain line format and describe the actions of the unspecified somebody. Several of the later verses expand the “need” to the steps for initiation into the church. These do not have refrains.
The difference in format between the earlier and later verses suggests he heard some form of “Come by Here” and adapted it. Whether or not he modified the “happy” verse is unknowable at this time.
Meador’s wife [1] founded The Emmanuel Church of Christ, in Nashville. It followed “Oneness Pentecostalism” that posited a single god, not the trinity. [2] Frank Ewart introduced the idea to Pentecostals in 1914. His most influence convert was Garfield Haywood, an African American who opened his Christ Temple in Indianapolis to all races. [3]
Nina Gregory Meador’s church was independent, and she seems to have only had contacts with white churches. When she wanted to be baptized, she went to Bay City, Texas, on the Gulf coast. [4] If Meador did not have a direct contact with an African American who knew the song, he may have heard it from some white who did.
His version of “Come by Here” gained wider exposure in 1935 when Orion Alewhite included it in his second song collection. He listed Anderson, South Carolina, as his home, [5] but apparently was living in Detroit. [6] He held a revival in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1935 that featured “special string music and singing.” [7]
Alewine was associated with Richard Spurling’s [8] Church of God. It grew out of Baptist churches in eastern Tennessee in the 1890s, and expanded under the leadership of Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson. [9] The latter was a Quaker from Westfield, Indiana, who was about five years older than Varner Chance’s father. [10] The Holiness denominations main activities were in the mountains where most of the residents were white.
Both Nina’s church and Spurling’s Church of God are premillennial. Emmanuel Apostolic believes it is “a continuation of the great Apostolic Revival which began at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, A.D. 33” and that we are living “under the latter day reign of the Holy Ghost.” [11] Both churches recognize speaking in tongues as evidence that an individual has been baptized by the Holy Ghost. [12]
Performers
Vocal Soloist: none
Vocal Group: four part
Instrumental Accompaniment: piano
Rhythm Accompaniment: none
Credits
Arr. by W. A. Meador
Copyright, 1934, by W. A. Meador in “Gospel Light Songs”
Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Verses: needs you, sorry, praying, happy, here to be sanctified, loves you, needs to be baptized, needs the Holy Ghost, praising
Pronoun: somebody
Term for Deity: Lord
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: verse-burden
Verse Length: four lines
Line Repetition Pattern: AAAB
Line Form: lines in first three verses end with the refrain “come by here;” the others end with a variation of the first part of the line
Ending: none
Unique Features: emphasis on conversion
Notes on Music
Opening Phrase: 1-3-5
Time Signature: 4/4
Tempo: not indicated
Key Signature: two sharps
Basic Structure: strophic repetition
Harmonic Structure: parallel thirds in upper two parts; divergent harmony in lower two parts
Singing Style: one syllable to one note including the final “Lord”
Special Features: shape notes
Notes on Performance
The Gospel Light Songs has tan, cardboard covers with a black fabric binding. A cross is in the center, with scrolls radiating from it. The inscription in the cross is:
J (top section)
Is Jesus (crossbar)
Jehovah (entire vertical section)
Notes on Performers
Meador’s family had lived in Macon County, Tennessee, on the Kentucky border, since the early nineteenth century when his great-great-grandfather moved from the Virginia Piedmont. [13] Jobe Meador probably was in Tennessee when the Cane Ridge Revival broke out in 1801.
Walter was a machinist in the U. S. Navy during World War I, [14] and was injured. Afterwards, he became a lawyer. [15]
His wife had closer ties to Cane Ridge. Her family’s farm was on the Red River [16]. Her great-great-great-grandfather was a Methodist who left Virginia for Kentucky in 1788. [17] His descendants moved about Kentucky and Tennessee; her grandfather was buried in Gallatin, [18] mentioned in the post for 2 May 2021.
Nina’s father was a Baptist deacon, while her mother was a “sanctified Methodist.” She attended services in both, and professed her faith in 1912, when she was twelve years old. She joined the Holiness group when she was twenty, which may have been before she met Meador. She began preaching in 1925, and held revivals in Logan County, Kentucky, and Gallatin. [19]
Emmanuel Church of Christ was legally organized as a church in 1933. [20] Meador published his songbook the next year.
Alewine’s immigrant ancestor was a Huguenot who fled Alsace for Rotterdam. [21] His great-grandfather was a farmer near Abbeville, South Carolina in 1870. [22] Ten years later, his grandfather was a laborer in Abbeville. By 1910, the thirteen-year-old Alewine and his father were working in a cotton mill near Atlanta. [23]
Alewine may have moved north during World War II, or in the years immediately after. He was a Church of God preacher in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1932. [24] He moved back to Anderson, South Carlina, in the fall of that year. [25] In 1934, he and his wife enrolled in classes in the church’s Bible Training School in Cleveland, Ohio, and, as mentioned above, were listing Detroit, Michigan, as their home. [26]
His next 1935 songbook was published in Cleveland, Tennessee, and Hartwell, Georgia, [27] another mill town about 25 miles from Anderson. [28] He died there in 1945. [29]
Meador lived until 1954, [30] when his wife remarried on 14 January in Nashville. [31]
Availability
Book: W. A. Meador. “Oh, Lord, Come by Here.” 28 in The Gospel Light Songs. Nashville, Tennessee: 1934.
Book: W. A. Meador. “Oh, Lord, come by here.” In Chimes of Glory No 2. Edited by Orion L. Alewine. Cleveland, Tennessee: 1935. [WorldCat entry]
Graphics
1. Copy of “Oh, Lord, Come by Here” in The Gospel Light Songs. Copy provided by Nancy Richey from the Kentucky Library Research collections of the University of Western Kentucky.
2. Meador’s photograph appears on the Photo C tab.
End Notes
1. Linda Carpenter. Notes for George William Washington Gregory in “George Moses Dallas & Mary Ann Eunice (Hughes) Gregory.” RootsWeb website. 2007.
2. “About Our Organization.” Emmanuel Apostolic website. This is the current name for Emmanuel Church of Christ.
3. Vinson Synan. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997 edition. 172–173. Haywood wrote most of the songs in his church’s songbook, The Bridegroom Songs. [32]
4. Emmanuel Apostolic.
5. The publication locations for the songbook were Cleveland, Tennessee, headquarters of the Church of God, and Anderson, South Carolina.
6. The Church of God Bible Training School. Catalog for 1934–1935. Nora Alewine and Orion Alewine are listed as freshmen from Detroit on page 32.
7. Item. Battle Creek Enquirer, Battle Creek, Michigan, 12 June 1935. 9.
8. “What is the Church of God (COG), and what do they believe?” Got Questions website.
9. Wikipedia. “Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee).”
10. Wikipedia. “Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson.” Chance is discussed in the post for 21 March 2021. Tomlinson was born in 1865 and Enoch Alvin Chance in 1869. These sorts of connections are interesting because, while they do not indicate direct influences, they suggest shared cultural values that lead to an appreciation of “Come by Here.”
11. Emmanuel Apostolic.
12. Emmanuel Apostolic.
“Declaration of Faith.” Church of God website.
13. Rock Talker. “Jobe Meador.” Find a Grave website. 27 March 2009. Updated by Michael Meador. His immigrant ancestor migrated from Suffolk, England, by 1738. [33]
14. US Veterans Affairs Office. “Walter Awood Meador.” Find a Grave website. 3 March 2000. Updated by Rock Talker.
15. “Walter Awood Meador, LL,B., LL.M.” Gospel Light Songs.
16. Emmanuel Apostolic.
17. Daniel Gregory. “Richard W. Gregory.” Find a Grave website. 26 March 2014.
18. Sent with love~Cerise. “George M. Dallas Gregory.” Find a Grave website. 4 March 2005.
19. Emmanuel Apostolic. Logan County was the initial center of the Cane Ridge revival; it is mentioned in the post for 8 November 2020.
20. Emmanuel Apostolic.
21. shirley amerson. “John George (Johann Georg Genewyn) Alewine.” Find a Grave website. 7 March 2019.
22. Bill Alewine. “Abraham Alewine.” Find a Grave website. 21 November 2018.
23. Bill Alewine. “Re: George Benjamin Alewine.” Genealogy website. October 03, 2009.
24. Item. Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, Ohio, 19 April 1932. 7.
25. Item. Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, Ohio, 29 September 1932. 8.
26. Bible Training School catalog. This school became the Lee College that was attended by Clariece Paulk. She is mentioned in the post for 11 October 2018.
27. Orion L. Alewine. Chimes of glory. No. 3. Cleveland, Tennessee, and Hartwell, Georgia, 1935. [WorldCat entry]
28. Wikipedia. “Hartwell, Georgia.”
29. Bobbie O’Barr. “Orion L. Alewine.” Find a Grave website. 18 January 2012.
30. US Veterans Affairs Office.
31. kimshockey (reb). “Elder Nina May Gregory Pierce.” Find a Grave website. 3 June 2005. Updated by Victor E. Everhart.
32. The Bridegroom Songs. Indianapolis: Christ Temple, no date, purchased in 2016.
33. Walter Pack Family. “Thomas Meador.” Find a Grave website. 2 March 2012. The first child was born in York County, Virginia, in 1738.
Sunday, May 2, 2021
Ella Hampton Robinson
Topic: Early Versions
Ella Hampton’s mother, Annie Elizabeth, was born in 1866 in Gallatin, Tennessee, and “was brought to Texas when a child by the Campbells (whites whom she stayed with until of age.” [1]
Gallatin was then an unofficial refugee center. Slaves fled to the Sumner County seat after Union forces took firm control of the area in 1863. Many were hired back to their masters for wages. [2] A camp was established in July for families of Black soldiers and the infirm who were abandoned by owners who moved to Confederate-controlled territory. [3]
By the end of 1863, Walter Durham said escaped slaves felt secure enough to move about in public. “On Sundays there was preaching by blacks for blacks, sometimes held in one of the white church houses.” [4]
Confederate veterans returned after the war ended, and a different kind of civil war erupted in the county as individuals sought revenge on those they did not feel were loyal to the Southern cause. [5] Whites moved into town to escape scavengers in the country. [6] Some 220 families left Tennessee for the Bosque County, Texas, region between 1860 and 1880. [7]
Ella was born in 1885 [8] when her mother was 19 years old. They must have stayed close to the Campbells after Lizzie married Wade Hampton, because Ella remembered that when she married John Robinson in 1906 she, Ella, wore a “beautiful ‘honey-moon’ gray and white stole, made by the white lady, in whose home” she was “partly reared.” [9]
Education existed for African Americans in Bosque County: less than 25% of the population over the age of 21 was completely illiterate in 1920. [10] However, secondary training was limited to a school opened in the Sadler community in 1908. [11]
Ella apparently got some education, but probably began doing domestic work as soon as she was able. She remembered that after her marriage she “wanted to finish my school-work here, so he let me go on to school and finish under Mrs. O. B. Malcomb.” [12] This meant she may not have had to work so many hours for others.
She added: “Later, we both attended night-school with Mrs. Ora Hamilton, and did our high school work. Then we began with Meridian College, where he was cook until it closed.
“Beatrice and I were the only colored, and the last to study at this college, where we both studied music. I got in other studies that has helped us through life.” [13]
If Beatrice was John’s niece, then this would have occurred before her parents, William and Ida Sedberry, completed their move to Lubbock, Texas, in 1923. [14] The Klan appeared in Bosque County in 1922 near Walnut Springs, [15] where John’s father had lived in the nineteenth century. [16] Increased demonstrations of bigotry may have enforced segregation at the Methodist school.
During these years, Ella was working for the family of a local lawyer. [17] Hugh Jackson Cureton’s father and grandfather were pioneer settlers in the area of Walnut Springs. [18] Rebecca Radde said “Ella worked partly as a laundress.” [19]
When John and Ella moved to Lubbock in 1930, they left an area settled by Southerners, who had followed the Brazos before the Civil War, [20] for the high plains. The white population of Bosque County dropped by 1,772 between 1920 and 1930. There were 150 fewer African Americans at the end of the 1920s decade. [21]
In contrast, Lubbock was growing. The total population increased from 11,096 in 1920 to 39,104 in 1930. The Black community went from being a negligible 152 to 1,677. That was more than three times the 510 in Bosque County. [22]
Sedberry’s Cumberland Presbyterian church may still have been small, but it had to have been larger than the one in Meridian. In 1939 it produced a Christmas program that included instrumental and vocal solos and duets by fourteen different individuals. Ella played an “instrumental Christmas selection.” [23]
When she returned to Meridian, Ella introduced musical events, including a Christmas program in 1942 that featured John’s mother, Mariah Hill Robinson, [24] and a piano recital in 1944. [25] At some time, she directed a program of Negro spirituals and related songs for a white Methodist church. It included “The Old Ship of Zion,” sung by John, “Swing low Sweet Chariot,” and “It’s Me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” Ella sang “When they ring them Golden Bells.” [26]
Ella worked for Mary Wallace when they returned in 1942. She had been born in Bosque County, and was the granddaughter of an early settler. [27] Sometime after her second husband was killed in sawmill accident in 1930, [28] Wallace returned to Bosque County. She died in 1946. [29]
Ella then worked for Wallace’s daughter for thirty years. [30] Martha Brooks’ husband died in 1972, [31] and Ella retired soon after in 1973 at age 88. [32]
She remained active in the women’s auxiliaries of her husband’s lodges: [33] the Order of Pilgrims and Eastern Star. [34] She may have been more active than he in the church, especially after he died in 1952.
was established by Presbyterians in 1783 [36] by William McGee. [37] William Hodge became the pastor of the Shiloh church in 1800. [38] A group went to the Gasper River to verify the rumors they heard about James McGready, then held a meeting at nearby Desha Creek in September 1800 with McGready and Hodge. The same “emotional reactions” appeared. [39]
While Hodge eventually recanted and rejoined the Presbyterians, Shiloh became one of the original members of the new Cumberland Presbyterian denomination. [40]
In 1979, Ella was named woman of the year at the denomination’s annual meeting held in Detroit. She wrote: “After the crowing, my request was that all from Texas stand and sing ‘Amazing Grace.’ When they rose and sang the house was on fire with the Holy Ghost. It was like the great revival in 1810 when the old Cumberland Church was organized.” [41]
By then Ella was frail. She had fallen in 1977, and spent 15 months in the local geriatric center while her bones mended. [42] She was able to return to her home, [43] but died in the center in 1985 at age 99. [44]
Graphics
1. Cumberland Presbyterian church from church minute book. Ella Robinson collection.
2. Her photograph appears on the Photos C tab.
End Notes
Ella Robinson gave copies of photographs and family papers to the Archives of the Bosque County Historical Commission, Meridian, Texas. Copies were provided by Bill Calhoon, Manager of Bosque County Collection.
1. “Annie Elizabeth Hampton.” Obituary. Unidentified newspaper clipping in Ella Robinson collection. Hampton died in 1911.
2. Walter T. Durham. Rebellion Revisited. Gallatin, Tennessee: Sumner County Museum Association, 1982. 168.
3. Durham, Rebellion. 171.
4. Durham, Rebellion. 172.
5. Durham, Rebellion. 255–257.
6. Wikipedia. “Gallatin, Tennessee.”
7. Homer L. Kerr. “Migration into Texas, 1860–1880.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 70:184–216:October 1966. Total calculated from his data. Durham said “threats and violence directed against Union men in the northern part of the county after the war caused the exodus of several families to safer territory in Missouri, Indiana, and, especially, Illinois.” [45] Kerr noted many who came to Texas came in steps, with many from Tennessee stopping first in Arkansas. [46]
8. Simone Wichers Voss. “Roots: Bosque County-Style.” Meridian Tribune, Meridian, Texas, 26 February 2014. 7B.
9. Ella Hampton Robinson. “Eulogy of the late Elder J. M. Robinson by EHR.” Typed document in Ella Robinson collection.
10. 1920 Census: Volume 3. Population, Composition and Characteristics of the Population by States. United States Census, 1922. “Table 9. Composition and Characteristics of the Population, for Counties: 1920.” 991.
11. Voss. The Sadler community is discussed in the post for 11 April 2021.
12. Robinson, eulogy.
13. Robinson, eulogy.
14. See the post for 25 April 2021 for details on John’s sister Ida and her husband, William Sedberry.
15. William C. Pool. A History of Bosque County Texas. San Marcos, Texas: San Marcos Record Press, 1954. 62. “Although the Klan was active in local politics for almost a decade, its influence was limited and its revival of brief duration.”
16. See the post for 11 April 2021 for details on John’s father, Peter Robinson.
17. Voss. In the context of Meridian College closing in 1927, Voss wrote Ella “had also worked in the Cureton family for about twenty years.”
18. Wm C. Pool and Jack Cureton. “Cureton, Captain J. J. (Jack).” 240–241 in Bosque County: Land and People. Edited by Nell Gillam Jensen. Meridian, Texas: Bosque County History Book Committee, 1985.
Jack Cureton. “Cureton.” 241 in Jensen.
19. Rebecca Raddle. “Robinson, Priscilla.” 634 in Jensen.
20. Robert L. Foster. “Black Lubbock: a History of Negroes in Lubbock, Texas, to 1940.” Master of Arts thesis. Texas Tech University. December 1974. 5.
21. Table 9, United States Census, 1920. Bosque County, 991.
1930 Census: Volume 3. Population, Reports by States. United States Census, 1932. “Table 11 - Population by Age, Color, Nativity, and Sex, for Counties: 1930.” 951.
22. Table 9, United States Census, 1920. 1005.
Table 11, United States Census, 1930. 962.
23. Messiah Presbyterian church, Lubbock, Texas. “Silver Tree and Silver Offering” on 13 December 1939. Program in Ella Robinson collection.
24. Handwritten notes on Christmas program, Meridian, Texas, 25 December 1942. Ella Robinson collection.
25. “Recital.” Typed program, 9 June 1944. Ella Robinson collection.
26. “Meridian, Texas.” Unidentified newspaper clipping in Ella Robinson collection. “When They Ring Those Golden Bells” was composed in 1887 by Daniel de Marbelle [47] and appeared in a number of gospel songbooks. [48]
27. Melba Collier Johnson. “Collier, Francis Marion.” 217 in Jensen.
28. John Owen. “William Parker Wallace (1875 - 1930).” Wiki Tree website. Last updated 23 October 2019. Her first husband was Homer Randal. [49]
29. John Owen. “Mary Caroline (Collier) Wallace (1885 - 1946).” Wiki Tree website. Last updated 19 October 2018.
30. “Ella Robinson.” Obituary. Meridian Tribune, Meridian, Texas, 15 November 1985. 5. Ella Robinson collection.
31. Linda Huff. “Martha Randal Wallace Brooks.” Find a Grave website. 1 March 2008; last updated by The Cemetery Lady.
32. Robinson, obituary.
33. John Robinson’s activities are discussed in the post for 18 April 2021.
34. Robinson, obituary.
35. The Cane Ridge revival is discussed in the posts for 8 November 2020 and 11 November 2020. The map with the first shows the location of Nashville. Gallatin is about 30 miles to the northeast.
36. Kitty Kulakowski. “Early Settlers Brought Their Religion With Them to County.” The News-Examiner, Gallatin, Tennessee, 29 March 1986. 3-C.
37. Walter T. Durham. The Great Leap Westward. Gallatin, Tennessee: Sumner County Public Library Board, 1993. 159. McGee is discussed in the post for 8 November 2020.
38. Durward T. Stokes. “Hodge (Hodges), William.” NC Pedia website. 1988.
39. John B. Boles. The Great Revival. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996 edition. 71.
40. Stokes.
41. “Card of Thanks.” June 13. Unidentified newspaper clipping in Ella Robinson collection. 1979 deduced from statement she was 94 years old. [50]
42. Ella Robinson. “‘Miss Ella’ Enjoys Stay in Geriatric Center.” Unidentified newspaper clipping in Ella Robinson collection. Year deduced from the fact she was 92 years old. “Many thanks to Mrs Ida Etchinson, who gave me first aid, picked me up and carried me to the hospital after my fall.”
43. “Open House Planned by Ella Robinson.” Unidentified newspaper clipping in Ella Robinson collection.
44. Robinson, obituary.
45. Durham, Rebellion. 293.
46. Kerr. 192.
47. Wikipedia. “When They Ring Those Golden Bells.”
48. “When They Ring the Golden Bells.” Hymnary website.
49. Johnson.
50. Robinson, Geriatric Center.