Topic: CRS Version
Kathryn Thompson Good was the immediate source for Lynn Rohrbough’s version of “Kum Ba Yah.” She most likely learned it at a Buckeye Recreation Workshop in 1954, and taught it to John Blocher, Jr. He transcribed it for a 1955 an Indianola Methodist Church camp songbook published by Rohrbough’s Cooperative Recreation Service. [1]
As mentioned in the post for 3 October 2021, Bruce Tom was one of the founders of the Buckeye Workshop. She first met him when she was an undergraduate at Ohio State University in the late 1930s.
In 1938, Thompson directed a “Get Acquainted” party for a short course offered to Grange lecturers that was sponsored by Tom and the university’s Agricultural Extension office. [2]
That was spring of her senior year. Thompson was an education major, and on the department’s student council. Its responsibilities included “training in recreation activities for future teachers.” [3] Although it is not stated, one assumes Tom was involved, either directly or indirectly.
Her primary interest was music. Before Thompson could be initiated into the Delta Omicron music honorary, she had to present a recital. [4] Her other college activity was the YWCA. She co-chaired its peace committee. [5]
The summer after Thompson graduated, she worked at Camp Ohio, the 4-H camp mentioned in the post for 3 October 2021. She assisted in evening programs. [6] The next year she had “charge of group singing and vesper services,” while Tom supervised group games. [7] In 1940, she was on staff for a six-week conservation short course at the camp, and probably the one responsible for teaching folk dancing. [8]
She was teaching in the Columbus public schools in 1940, when she served on a National Recreation Association panel at its fall meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. Carl Hutchinson chaired the group discussing “Recreation in Cooperatives.” Tom was in the audience. [9]
Despite her activities with Tom, Thompson was not a farm girl. She was born in 1914, and her family says “she lived in Columbus most of her life.” [10] However, she became one when she married Gene Good. He was raised on a farm in northwestern Ohio, and worked for the Soil Conservation Service after he graduated from high school. During this time, he also had to have been working on his undergraduate degree in botany. They must have married soon after he earned it in 1940. [11]
Good worked for the Indiana Department of Conservation in 1941, then they moved to a farm in his native Van Wert County where he grew purebred seeds. He also was working on his master’s thesis on the local Great Black Swamp. [12] During this time, they had three children. She, now known as Mrs. Eugene Good, was involved with a Farm Bureau Youth Group recreation program in 1945. [13]
After Good earned his master’s in 1948 and joined the OSU staff, [14] they returned to Columbus. One would guess they conformed to faculty expectations for its members. It may be then that they joined the Indianola Methodist Episcopal Church. [15] It often shared its pastor with the university’s Wesley Foundation. [16]
As was the way with women in the years after World War II, Tommy, as she was called, became nearly invisible. Mrs. E. E. Good attended the wedding of a cousin in 1949, [17] and led the singing at a revival in Worthington in 1952. [18] She used her nickname when she registered for the Buckeye Workshop that year in Urbana. [19]
Gene earned his zoology PhD in 1952, [20] which may have given them more freedom, and possibly more income. The children would all have been in elementary school. It is not known when they began going to the Indianola camp. [21] Oscar Barnebey [22] built facilities for the church in 1927, [23] and transferred ownership to the Barnebey Foundation in 1954. [24]
The family remembers: “Tommy always led the group sings, whether around a campfire, after meals, or vespers. She particularly loved negro spirituals and folk songs. Kumbaya was a favorite of all.” One child especially recalls “she had an amazing range of musical interests and enthusiasms. She was a gifted square dance caller.” [27]
Tom retired from OSU in 1954, but continued to work as a lecturer for the Grange. [28] He attended the 1954 Buckeye Workshop, [29] where it is believed Tommy heard “Kumbaya.” She was on the Workshop planning committee in 1963, [30] and served on the permanent committee from 1967 through 1969. [31]
By then, the Good children were entering college. One graduated from high school in 1961, a second in 1962, and the youngest in 1968. [32] Tommy was able to return to teaching by 1969. [33] She died in 1985. [34]
Graphics
1. Kathryn Thompson Good at Indianola, August 1958. Photograph by John Blocher, Jr.
2. Her photograph also appears on the Photos K tab.
End Notes
Biographical information on Good is scarce. Her married name is a common adjective, and difficult to use in a Google search. Some historic Ohio State University publications only are available to members. The Columbus newspaper does not seem to have been digitized. The large local cemeteries have not been inventoried by the Find a Grave website.
1. Patricia Averill with John Blocher, Jr. “‘Kumbaya’ and Dramatizations of an Etiological Legend.” Voices 46:26–32:Spring–Summer 2020. Copy available from Academia.edu.
2. “Grange Speakers To Meet March 21.” The Lantern, Ohio State University, 25 February 1938.
3. “Education Council.” 59 in Makio, Ohio State University yearbook, 1938.
4. “Delta Omicron.” Makio. 376.
5. “YWCA.” Makio. 182. Thompson also was tapped for Mortar Board [35] and Pi Lamda Theta, the education honorary for women. [36]
6. Item. The Marysville Tribune, Marysville, Ohio, 5 July 1938.
7. Item. The Marysville Tribune, Marysville, Ohio, 10 July 1939. 3.
8. Item. The Evening Independent, Massillon, Ohio, 19 August 1940. 6.
9. National Recreation Association Congress, 30 September–4 October 1940. Proceedings. 136–137. Hutchinson is discussed in the posts for 19 September 2021, 26 September 2021, and 3 October 2021.
10. Kathryn Thompson Good’s family. Email, 10 November 2020.
11. Thomas M. Stockdale and John F. Disinger. “Ernest Eugene Good 1913–1994.” Ohio Journal of Science 94:164–165:December 1994. When she died in 1985, they had been married for 45 years.
12. Stockdale.
13. Item. The Times Bulletin, Van Wert, Ohio, 2 February 1945. 3.
14. Stockdale.
15. The only reference to her prior religious beliefs is her membership in the YWCA. Her cousin was married in an Evangelical and Reformed church. [37] Two of Good’s brothers were Baptists. [38]
16. Joan Giangrasse Kates. “Rev. Lee Charles Moorehead, 84.” Chicago Tribune, 23 March 2003. In 1944, Moorehead was appointed “as the minister to students at the Wesley Foundation at Ohio State University and as associate pastor of Indianola Methodist Church.” The church and the foundation merged with the University United Methodist Church to form the Summit United Methodist Church in 1977. [39]
17. “Grierson-Osborn Wedding Is Solemnized on Sunday In Church in Columbus.” Newark Advocate, Newark, Ohio, 4 April 1949. 6. Tommy was a hostess. Jane Grierson also was in the YWCA at Ohio State in 1938.
18. “M. E. Church Plans Religious Emphasis Week.” The Worthington News, Worthington, Ohio, 13 November 1952.
19. John Fark. Email, 1 November 2020.
20. Stockdale.
21. The family remembers their “summers were spent out of the city often in youth camps. Tommy and her husband Gene served in staff positions for youth camps as well as family camps. Camp Indianola, a Methodist church camp, was the primary camp.” [40]
22. Oscar Leonard Barnebey was from Missouri, [41] and earned a chemistry PhD in 1912 from the University of Wisconsin. [42] He met Merritt Brooke Cheney when both were serving in World War I. After their discharges, they formed a company [43] that exploited Barnebey’s research on manufacturing carbon filters. [44]
23. Gregg Griffith. “Former Recreation Site Donated as Research Lab.” The Lantern, Ohio State University, 5 June 1970.
24. “The Barnebey Foundation.” US Corporates website.
25. Camp Indianola. Brochure for 14th season. Ohio State University archives website.
26. John Blocher, Jr. Email, 28 April 2016.
27. Good family.
28. “R. Bruce Tom.” Ohio 1954–1955 Community Service Guide. Columbus: Ohio State University, September 1954. 23. He died in 1969. [45]
29. Larry Nial Holcomb. “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.” PhD dissertation. University of Michigan, 1972. 87.
30. “David Jenkins, County 4-H Extension Agent.” Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Lancaster, Ohio, 15 February 1963. 13. Also involved were Tom, and Rohrbough’s son-in-law, John Rowlands.
31. Fark.
32. One son is discussed in the post for 17 October 2021.
33. Item. Ohio State University Monthly, February 1969. The family said “she taught elementary vocal music in Columbus, Ohio area schools.” [46]
34. Stockdale.
35. Makio. 72–73.
36. Makio. 378.
37. Grierson-Osborn Wedding.
38. “Merrill M. Good.” The Times Bulletin, Van Wert, Ohio, 9 March 2017.
“Mood H. Max Good.” The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, Ohio, 25 July 2006.
39. “Our History.” Summit United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, website.
40. Good family.
41. Laura Anne Knight. “Oscar Leonard Barnebey.” Geni website, last updated 10 June 2017.
42. Oscar Leonard Barnebey. “Rare Earth Reactions in Non-Aqueous Solvents.” PhD dissertation. University of Wisconsin, 1912.
43. “Merritt Brooke Cheney.” American Ceramic Society Bulletin 1:26:May 1922. The company was Barnebey-Cheney Engineering of Columbus.
44. Oscar L. Barnebey. “Process for the Manufacture of Decolorizing Carbons.” Patent 1537286A, granted 12 May 1925.
45. Item. The Circleville Herald, Circleville, Ohio, 4 September 1969. 5. The Grange charter was draped in his memory.
46. Good family.
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