I grew up with folk music. The first recordings I really remember were by Pete Seeger, the Weavers, and Burl Ives. When I was in high school near Washington DC, I listened to Dick Cerri's Music Americana, first on WAVA, then another station for a short time, then on WETA. During the year I was in 10th grade, we were having dinner with some friends one evening and my sisters and I went with their daughters to a neighbors home to folk dance. he had done folk dancing at MIT and she had taught in a Kentucky settlement school and had taken students to the Mountain Folk Festival at Berea College. Since that night, I've done many kinds of folk dancing for almost 45 years.

I first met Jean and her family the first time I attended the Christmas Country Dance School at Berea College at the end of 1970. For the next several years I enjoyed the special music from the Ritchie family. Jean's sister, Edna, and her husband came every year and one year another sister came from Colorado, with some of her family.

One year I took a group of kids to the Mountain Folk Festival, and we put on the mummers play that we used to do in Accokeek and other places that we danced. Ethel Capps, then the director of recreation extension and teacher of the Berea College Dancers, told me to bring that play to Christmas School in December. For each of the next three years I worked with a group each week to put on the play on New Year's Eve. Peter and Jon were two of my actors, and we had a lot of fun.

Probably the last time I heard Jean in person was at the memorial concert for Frank Warner that was held in New York City _many_ years ago. That evening was also the only time that I ever heard Pete Seeger live.

My heart goes out to Jean and her family, and I hope that she will recover and be able to sing again.

Andy Peterson
now in Portland, Oregon

The torch is being passed to a new generation now. I'm seeing new bands whose members are the children of people with whom I used to dance and play music. The folk process goes on...