Photos K

CRS Version of "Kumbaya"

Lynn Rohrbough's Cooperative Recreation Service (CRS) published "Kumbaya" on 18 March 1955. Below are photographs of some of the people mentioned in "‘Kumbaya’ and Dramatizations of an Etiological Legend."

Clair Lovejoy Lennon heard a version of "Come by Here" in Georgia's Meriwether and Monroe counties before World War II. It’s the earliest report, so far, of the song’s existence. The photograph was taken when she was superintendent of the Allen School in Asheville, North Carolina. Copy in Heritage of Black Highlanders Collection of the University of North Carolina Asheville’s Ramsey Library Special Collections. Ashley McGhee Whittle helped me locate the copy.  Lennon is discussed in the posts from 14 October 2020 through 28 October 2020.

Clair Lennon taught "Come by Here" to May Louise Titus sometime before November 1956, probably when May was visiting her sister, Julia Titus, at the Allen School in Asheville, North Carolina, where Julia was principal. This photograph was taken in 1930 when May was a member of the Preacher’s Kids Club at Syracuse University. From the Onondagan. Edited and copyrighted by Edward C. Reifenstein Jr. and Bruce K. Thomas. 410. More recent photographs appear with the article and the post for 4 November 2020.  She is discussed in the post for 1 November 2020 and 4 November 2020.

Rohrbough believed Charles Melvin Blake was the source for his version of “Kumbaya.”  Blake was a missionary assigned to Angola.  He was on furlough to Nashville in the 1951–1952 school year, where he may have heard a version of “Come by Here.”  Photograph from the United Methodist Church Archives and History Center at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.  Copy provided by Frances Lyons, Reference Archivist, courtesy of the General Commission on Archives and History.  He is discussed in the posts for 28 February 2021, 7 March 2021, and 14 March 2021.

Rohrbough thought Blake passed the song on to Varner Chance.  He ran the music program at Epworth Forest, a Methodist retreat in northeast Indiana where Blake spent one or two weeks in the summer of 1952.  Photograph from the 1973–1974 edition of Legend, the yearbook for the Wawasee High School in Syracuse, Indiana.  He is discussed in the posts for 21 March 2021 and 28 March 2021.

Kathryn Thompson Good probably heard “Come by Here” at a Buckeye Recreation Workshop in 1953 or 1954, and taught it to John Blocher in the fall of 1954.  Photograph from Makio, the Ohio State University yearbook for 1938, page 133.  Another picture appears in the post for 10 October 2021.

 Before John Blocher, Jr heard “Come by Here,” someone had changed the pronoun from “somebody” to “someone.”  He altered the tune’s rhythm from 4/4 to 3/4 to accommodate that change in poetic meter.  His is the version that CRS published in a songbook for Indianola, a Columbus, Ohio, Methodist family camp.  Photograph from celebration of his 90th birthday by his scientific peers at Chemical Vapor Deposition 15:9:2009.

CRS was owned by Lynn Rohrbough and his wife, Katharine Ferris Rohrbough.  She oversaw the production of the songbooks, while he handled public relations.  He began publicizing “Kum Ba Yah” in a song sampler in January 1956.  Photograph used by permission of Michael A. Joyner.  Other pictures of Lynn appear with the posts for 12 September 2021 and 19 September 2021.

John Lawrence Eisenberg was a friend of Rohrbough’s who taught “Kumbaya” at Davidson College in late 1956 or early 1957.  Peter Seeger learned the song at the North Carolina meeting with students from Talladega College to promote racial understanding.  Photograph from the United Methodist Church Archives and History Center at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey.  Copy provided by Frances Lyons, Reference Archivist, courtesy of the General Commission on Archives and History.

When Eisenberg introduced “Kumbaya” some Talladega students told him it was an African-American song.  He contacted their friend, Thora Louise Dudley, and sent a copy of her lyrics back to Rohrbough.  This letter and that from Clair Lovejoy Lennon prompted Rohrbough to remove the “Angola” reference from the song’s headnote, and replace it with “Spiritual.”  Dudley was born in Pike County, Alabama, but raised in Montgomery.  She was the first blind student to graduate from Talladega.  More details appear inthe posts for 23 October 2022 and 30 October 2022.  Photo from a student publication provided by Talladega’s Archives Collection in the Savery Library.  My thanks to Perry H. Trice, Caitlin Cox, and Cassandra Burford for their help.