Genevieve Willcox Chandler - Come by Here, Lord

Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
Charles Joyner published a fragment of “Come by Here” in his study of Gullah culture along the Waccamaw River of South Carolina. [1]  It had been collected by Genevieve Willcox Chandler while she was working for the 1930s’ Federal Writers Project to collect memoirs of African Americans who were born into slavery.

The first two verses follow a logical progression: a request for the Lord to “come by here,” and a rationale for the plea (“need your power”).  The meaning of the third depends on the interpretation of “sinners moanin’.”  It could be a simple presentation of Methodist conversion theology that demanded probationers abase themselves to be saved, or it could refer to older methods for addressing the spirit world.

The Carolina Coast College professor provided no more information about the song.  It is possible there were more than three verses, but he only reprinted those that showed African Americans living on the Waccamaw neck “called upon the Lord for strength to face the burdens of the present.” [2]

Performers
Not indicated

Credits
WPA Mss. [3]

Notes on Lyrics
Language: English
Pronunciation: terminal G’s dropped; no other attempt at pronunciation given
 

Verses: come by here, need your power, sinners moanin’
Pronoun: none
Term for Deity: Lordy
Basic Form: three-verse song as presented
Verse Repetition Pattern: none
Ending: none
Unique Features: use of “power” and “moan”

Notes on Performance
Chandler was hired in May of 1936, [4] and John Lomax came to her home in Murrells Inlet in August of that year to record two churches and some local singers. [5]  If Chandler’s experience was anything like that of Ruby Pickens Tartt, discussed in the post for 23 January 2019, her first assignment was collecting spirituals. [6]  Eric Crawford suggests the woman who would have received those first notes, Mabel Montgomery, was responsible for Lomax’s appearance in South Carolina. [7]

These details potentially limit the possible sources of “Come by Here” to those recorded by Lomax: individuals associated with Jerusalem Baptist Church, including Hagar Doctor Brown; members of the Heavens’ Gate Methodist Church, including Lillie Cowdell Knox and Aaron Pinnacle; Mrs Joseph A. Gaines, Frances Godson, and Janie Pyatt.

The three interviewed by Chandler represented three different cultural traditions.  Brown was born during the Civil War, and raised on a Georgetown County plantation that had grown rice with flood irrigation before the war.  Knox’s ancestors had lived on a plantation in Horry County which was beyond the area that could utilize the tides.  Pinnacle’s parents were from Charleston.

What is known about the three Black worlds comes from interviews conducted by Chandler after Lomax left.

Notes on Performers
Chandler was from the outer coastal plain that grew cotton; her family bought property on the Waccamaw neck in 1904, and moved there in 1908. [8]  There is little evidence she had any interest in music, or many contacts with African Americans before she began working for the Writers Project.  Her primary qualifications were that she needed money, was educated, had attempted writing short stories, and was from the same hometown as the woman doing the hiring. [9]

Chandler did already know the two women in 1936.  Knox worked for her, and Brown was in a material and emotionally dependent relationship.  Chandler’s husband had saved her son from drowning when his raft flipped on the Waccamaw. [10]  By 1936, Brown was in her late 70s and living alone.  She made it a habit to stop by Chandler’s house where Knox would fill her bag with produce from the garden. [11]

The number of contacts Chandler had with the local Black community increased when she was hired by the Writers Project.  Her husband had just died, and she had no resources.  Her brothers had told her to place her children in an orphanage. [12]  Knox realized her own livelihood depended upon Chandler’s success, [13] and she began contacting people she knew.  She, or members of her extended family, were present at many of the later interviews. [14]

The Writers Project published material from thirteen people in its four volumes of slave narratives related to South Carolina. [15]  It also included material Chandler collected in its South Carolina Folk Tales. [16]

During this period, Chandler published two stories based on her interviews in Scribners magazine: “De Wind an’ de Tide” [17] and “O’ Precious.” [18]  She stopped writing in the 1940s when the Saturday Evening Post rejected her work about illiterate, rural African Americans as “demeaning.” [19]

Later, Chandler’s daughter, Genevieve Chandler Peterkin, worked with two men to publish more of the folklore collected by Chandler.  They added material from thirty-six individuals, most of whom were born after the end of the Civil War.  The editors did not include the song, but promised another “volume of song and spirituals” that did not materialize. [20]

Some of this work may have been inspired by Lomax, who returned to Murrells Inlet in 1937.  In January he recorded four people interviewed by Chandler, and five others, some of whom may have been kin. [21]  In July, he met five individuals known by Chandler from 1936, and eleven others. [22]  He met Knox and members of her extended family both times.  On his final trip in 1939, Lomax recorded five white singers.  He never saved a version of “Come by Here.”

Availability
Charles Joyner.  “Come by Here, Lord.”  In Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.  165-166.

End Notes
1.  Joyner.
2.  Joyner.  165.
3.  Joyner.  308, note 46: “‘Come by Here, Lord,’ WPA Mss.

4.  Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories Collected by Genevieve W. Chandler, edited by Kincaid Mills, Genevieve C. Peterkin, and Aaron McCollough.  Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2008.  xxiv.

5.  “South Carolina 1934-1940.”  Cultural Equity website.

6.  Ruby Pickens Tartt.  Letter to Janie Long Allen, undated.  Ruby Pickens Tartt Collection, Julia Tutwiler Library, University of West Alabama University.  Reprinted by Virginia Pounds Brown and Laurella Owens.  Toting the Lead Row.  University: The University of Alabama Press, 1981.  13.

7.  Eric Crawford.  “The Knoxes of Murrells Inlet.”  Oxford American website, 19 November 2019.

8.  Chandler’s background will be explored in a future post.

9.  Both Chandler and Montgomery were from Marion, South Carolina. [23]

10.  Genevieve C. Peterkin.  Heaven is a Beautiful Place, in conversation with William B. Baldwin.  Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000.  18.

11.  Peterkin.  Cited by Coming Through.  14.
12.  Peterkin, Heaven.  20.
13.  Peterkin.  Cited by Coming Through.  126.
14.  Coming Through.

15.  Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves – South Carolina Narratives.  Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project.  Washington: Library of Congress, 1941.

Volume 1: Welcome Bees, Hager Brown, Louisa Brown, Margaret Bryant, and Albert Carolina.

Volume 2: Ellen Godfrey, Mariah Heywood, Ben Horry, and Georgia Horry.
Volume 3: Gabe Lance and William Oliver.
Volume 4: Sam Rutledge and Willis Williams.

16.  South Carolina Writers’ Project.  South Carolina Folk Tales.  Columbia: South Carolina Education Association, 1941.  It has more tales than are reprinted in Coming Through, and the Gullah language is stronger.

The animal tales in both volumes are from Lillie Knox’s husband, Richard Knox; Matthew Grant, Zackie Knox, George Kato Singleton, and Lewis Small.

The supernatural tales in both volumes are from Lillie Knox, her husband Richard, and her husband’s mother, Addie Knox.  One other about Cindy Lance differs between the two books, and no source is given.

17.  Genevieve Chandler.  “De Wind an’ de Tide.”  Scribners 102(6)14-17:December 1937.

18.  Genevieve W. Chandler.  “O’ Precious.”  Scribners 103(5):47-49:May 1938.  This mentions Welcome Bees.

19.  Peterkin, Heaven.  29.  There may have been other stories that I could not locate on the internet.

20.  Coming Through.  73.

21.  Cultural Equity.  In January 1939, Lomax recorded Chandler’s daughter, June Chandler; Horry’s wife, Stella Horry; Pinnacle’s children George and Myrtle Pinncale; Lillie Knox and her husband’s sister, Minnie Knox; Albertine Keith, Mrs. Alex Sing, and Martha Wright.

22.  In July 1937, Lomax recorded Lillie Knox; her husband’s sister or step-sister, Thelma Knox; Zackie Knox; Pinnacle; Tina Russell, and a group of ditch-diggers led by Mike Maybank.  The last were working on a WPA project in Murrells inlet.

23.  robin pellicci moore.  “Mabel Montgomery.”  Find a Grave website, 8 May 2011.