A nice post Jeanie. It remined me of the time my uncle showed me a photograph of our grandmother as a young woman. I had only ever known her as an old woman. To see the photograph of a stunningly beautiful young woman, who won prizes for dancing and swimming, made me wonder whether inside her head she was still that young woman when I knew her.
I guess one of the best characteristics of folk songs, is that they can show you how the world looks from someone else's eyes. "Cold Haily Windy Night" came close for me the first time I heard it. There are many folk ballads about the maiden who has been deflowered and is left holding the baby, but for some reason that one in particular got over the awfulness of the situation of an abandoned mother to me.