Buckeye Recreation Workshop - Kum Ba Ya (Come By Here)

 

Topic: Kumbaya 1955-1961
The Buckeye Recreation Workshop is the second place from whence “Kumbaya” could have spread before Lynn Rohrbough began publicizing the song.

John Blocher transcribed the song from the singing of Kathryn Thompson Good, [1] probably in the fall of 1954 for a songbook published on 15 March 1955. [2]  I asked Blocher if Good ever took her young children to the family evenings in Delaware, Ohio, that are mentioned in the post for 22 May 2022.  He, in turn, asked them what they remembered from their childhoods.  Blocher wrote back:

“None of the three surviving Goods remember going there as a family, but they distinctly remember Tommy’s activities on the Board of BRW.” [3]

While this suggests a high probability that she heard the song at the workshop, it is not proof.  More suggestive evidence come from the papers saved by a workshop board member from the 1955 workshop held in Urbana, Ohio, from April 17 to April 23.  Most items were handouts from sessions, but there was no schedule of events.  It also included a roster and group photograph.

Some of the handouts look like they were prepared to be used during sessions.  A few were created during the workshop.  They all were made from stencils.

Good helped write one that chronicled the afternoon group sessions.  As mentioned in the post for 3 October 2021, the first workshops featured afternoon teas with short lectures.  Lynn Rohrbough discussed games on Monday.  Tom Bruce spoke on Wednesday. [4]

The most important tea occurred on Thursday when “our own Gus Zanzig, who most interestingly and graciously presented new songs, and taught us several.  He pointed out the value of different types of songs, and told us the origins of several.  Songs that can be acted out and most enjoyable and play a part all their very own.” [5]

A sheet titled “Song Leading” suggests he may have given a talk on that subject. [6]  Usually, such handouts include instructions or hints for directing group session.  If those existed, they disappeared.  Instead, the first three attached pages featured hand-written transcriptions of music with typed texts.  One had been used during a Thursday event, [7] and another included a parody “contributed by Warren Bright.” [8]

The inclusion of material that emerged during the workshop suggests these pages were produced to satisfy requests from attendees.  The fourth page has the same character.   It is handwritten, and includes fragments that Zanzig might have mentioned in his talk: an introduction to “Good News,” simple parts for “Walking at Night,” and a descant for the chorus of “Down the River.”

The last page is the most important.  It is a handwritten version of “Kum Ba Ya.”  The stencil is so uneven, it could not have been produced by a professional like Jane Keen. [9]  However, the treble clef signs are the same on all five pages.  The handwriting varies some from that on the previous page, but has enough similarities to suggest they two were done by the same person.

The unknown is why the song was included.  Someone who attended the workshop may have inquired about something remembered from the previous year, or Good may have made an announcement about her camp’s new songster.  In the process she may have sung or otherwise mentioned it included a song they might remember.

The fact “Kum Ba Yah” was included may be the first signal people liked the song.  The stenciled version also implies some changes that were made to fit the audience.  Instead of coming from Angola, this headnote says it is an “African spiritual.”  Rohrbough’s version did not mention “come by here,” but this version does.  This hints that, from the beginning, some were uncomfortable with unknown or foreign words.

Notes on Lyrics
The text is identical with the version by Blocher that was issued 33 days before the start of this workshop.  Blocher’s version is reproduced in the post for 29 May 2022.

Notes on Music
The melody is the same as Blocher’s version.  Whoever made the stencil had to have seen a copy of Indianola Sings or a proof sheet for the song that Rohrbough could have produced if asked.

The most important change was the addition of chords, which were associated with the key of C, which has no flats or sharps.  For some reason, the autographer indicated it had one flat.  This idiosyncrasy appears with some of the other songs in the “Song Leading” set.  The tempo marking also has been dropped.

Notes on Performers
Augustus D. Zanzig’s name appears in the list of references in the column at the right.  At this time, he was associated with the Brookline Music School in Massachusetts, [10] and versifying translations of international songs as a part-time consultant to CRS. [11]

The Buckeye Recreation Workshop is discussed in the post for 3 October 2021.  In 1955, 123 individuals are listed in the workshop roster, excluding outside speakers, vendors, and people from out of state. [12]  All but one in the group photograph was white.  The dark-skinned young man in the back row might have been from Africa. [13]  His name gave no clues, and he attended from Ohio State.  Rohrbough introduced two Ohio Wesleyan University students from what was then the Gold Coast as part of his discussion of the game ADI. [14]

Of the 123 attendees, 81, or more than 65% were women.  This should not be surprising since the workshop lasted for seven days.  Most who came had jobs that were related to youth recreation.  More than 61% were 4-H leaders or employees of county agricultural extension offices or farm groups like the Grange.  Again, this would be expected since the group grew out of the extension activities of Tom mentioned in the post 3 October 2021.

Many of the remaining people were associated with churches (17%), with the majority of those Methodists.  A few were interested in folk or square dancing, [15] while twelve were involved with the Girl Scouts (5), Boy Scouts (2), Camp Fire Girls (2), YWCA (2), or DeMolay (1). [16]

The home addresses of the 123 gives some sense of the geographic reach of CRS, and the potential areas were “Kumbaya” subsequently might have been taught.  In the map below, black locations represent counties with one to three attendees, while red represents counties with more.  Often friends, or couples, especially ministers and their wives, came together.

Ohio was settled from three directions in the nineteen century.  Some came along the Lake Erie, especially after the Erie Canal was opened in 1825.  Later, immigrants were brought to factories along the lake’s shore.  4-H and county extension offices were organized to serve rural area; urban 4-H did not yet exist. [17]  Places like Toledo, Cleveland, and Akron sent no representatives, but Lorain and Sandusky did.

The second entry point was the Ohio River.  People often came from the south.  Except for Cincinnati, which saw a sizable influx of Germans in the middle-19th century, few came to the Workshop from counties that bordered Kentucky.

The third route was the National Road, which stretched from Wheeling, West Virginia, through Columbus to Richmond, Indiana, by 1839. [18]  Most of the migrants came from or through Pennsylvania.  That is roughly the path of the red dots on the map.

No one came from northwestern Ohio, which included Wyandot County mentioned in the post for 17 July 2022.  The land there generally was less good than the prairie lands in the middle of the state.  Good’s husband wrote his master’s thesis on part of the Great Black Swamp that dominated that part of the state. [19]

Graphics
1.  “Kum Ba Ya.”  5 in A. D. Zanzig.  “Song Leading.”  Buckeye Recreation Workshop, 1955, papers.

2.  Base map:  United States Census Bureau.  Outline Map of Counties.  Copy uploaded to Wikimedia Commons website by Abe Suleiman uploaded on 7 February 2010.

End Notes
Copies of papers from the eleventh annual Buckeye Recreation Workshop, Urbana, Ohio, 17 April to 23 April 1955 provided by a member of the current board of the workshop.

1.  John Blocher, Jr.  Email, 5 May 2016.
2.  Lynn Rohrbough.  Letter to Shawnee Press, 16 February 1959.

3.  John Blocher, Jr.  Letter, 30 June 2016.  The use of “surviving” is odd, since four of the Goods’ children were alive.  However, one had moved away, and may not have been part of the family discussion provoked by Blocher.  The fourth child, Bruce Good, is discussed in the post for 17 October 2021.  “BRW” is the Buckeye Workshop.

4.  Helen Stanfeld and Tommy Good.  “Teas.”  Buckeye Recreation Workshop, 1955, papers.  Stanfeld was with the extension office in Batavia and active in her church. [20]  Tommy was Good’s nickname.

5.  Stanfeld and Good.
6.  Zanzig, Song Leading.

7.  “Walking Together” was “used for Signature Thursday by Paul Whipple.” [21]  He was a Methodist minister from Hartford, Ohio. [22]

8.  Bright was a Methodist minister from the church that was sponsoring the event in Urbana, Ohio. [23]

9.  Keen produced stencils for the Northland Recreation Laboratory in the 1940s, before she began working for Rohrbough.  She is discussed in the posts 24 April 2022 and 8 May 2022.  This implies she was not present at the workshop, and, thus, probably was not a possible source for the notes mentioned in the post for 29 May 2022.

10.  “Buckeye Recreation Workshop - 1955” list of attendees.  Workshop papers.

11.  Augustus D. Zanzig.  Letter to Larry Nial Holcomb, 1 May 1972.  Cited by Holcomb in “A History of the Cooperative Recreation Service.”  PhD dissertation.  University of Michigan, 1972.  135.

12.  Workshop roster for 1955.

13.  Group photograph included between the Workshop cover page and the roster.  Buckeye Recreation Workshop papers, 1955.

14.  Stanfeld and Good.  The Gold Coast is now Ghana.

15.  Philip Maxwell came from the Oglebay Institute in Wheeling, West Virginia.  It is discussed in the post for 22 May 2022.  The fact someone came from Oglebay may suggest Mary Lea Bailey might have stopped by to visit without registering.  If she did this every year, she could be a source for the added notes to the CRS version of “Kum Ba Yah.”  She is discussed in the post for 22 May 2022.

16.  DeMolay is an organization for high-school-aged boys associated with the Masons. [24]  When I went to county fairs in Calhoun County, Michigan, in the early 1960s, older women had a food tent to provide inexpensive meals to individuals camping out in the barns with their livestock.

17.  The post for 3 October 2021 has a little on the history of the organizations.
18.  “National Road.”  Wikipedia website.

19.  E. E. Good.  “A History of the Natural Resources of Van Wert County.”  MA thesis.  Ohio State University, 1947.  He published some of the results in E. E. Good.  “The Original Vegetation of Van Vert County, Ohio.”  The Ohio Journal of Science 61(3)155–160:May 1961. [25]  He is mentioned in the post for 10 October 2021.

20.  Workshop roster for 1955.
21.  Zanzig, Song Leading.
22.  Workshop roster for 1955.
23.  Workshop roster for 1955.
24.  “DeMolay International.”  Wikipedia website.

25.  Thomas M. Stockdale and John F. Disinger.  “Ernest Eugene Good.”  Ohio Journal of Science 94(5):164–165:December 1994.