...from a Treasury of Stephen Foster, Random House, 1946 with historical notes by John Tasker Howard...

Stephen Collins Foster was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, now part of Pittsburgh, on the Fourth of July, 1826. Young Stephen was the tenth of eleven children. These Fosters were prominent people in western Pennsylvannia; they were active in both political and commerical affairs. His father, William Barclay Foster was at one time the Mayor of Allegheny Pennsylvannia, Stephen was a dreamer. Above all else he loved music. At twenty he sailed down the Ohio, on one of the river-boats he would some day immortalize in song, far more entranced with the singing of the deckhands than with the figures he was to add for three years in his brother's commission business. It was during the first five or six years of his married life that Stephen composed his finest songs. (He married Jane McDowell of Pittsburgh. ) Old Folks at Home, Massa's in de Cold Grown, My Old Kentucky Home and Old Dog Tray, Jeaanie with the Light Brown Hair, Come Where My love Lies Dreaming and Gentle Annie He married July 22, 1850. Thes songs were written from 1851 to 1856. ...when he moved to NY things began to deteriorate for him...He died most probably of tuberculosis , January 13, 1864...

extracted from the forward of this book.

His story sounds like Woody's, and like the many Orpheus'es among us...talented people so often need love and support to manage in the material world, don't they?...harpgirl