Child did his work in such a way that it wound up, by intent or by chance, making his ballad collection/compilation an accessable beacon of light to us uninformed city folkies who were drawn to the old songs as a way of stepping into the past and understanding aspects of the past otherwise inaccessible---a past that showed us how we got to be what we, now, for better or for worse, had become. Our generation looked to the past for values and beauty and also just for a good story. It was a cinch, in the 1950s and'60s, that we weren't getting those values from our homes. We decided to create our own mentors. Those with the seeming stature and academic credibility of Francis James Child of Harvard -- not to mention Cecil Sharp, D.K.Wilgus, Helene Stratman Thomas, Glenn Ohrlin, Joe Hickerson, Ralph Rinzler, Edith Fowke, the Allans--Mills, Lomax & Watts --- and SO MANY OTHERS. These gave my own life a meaning that has sustained my needs admirably. And Mr. Child was a big part of that.

Art Thieme