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Behind a Thanksgiving Ode
DigiTrad:
OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS
Related threads:
(origins) Origin: Over the River and through the Woods (20)
Lyr Req: Over the River and through the Woods (15)
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Behind a Thanksgiving Ode DigiTrad: OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS Related threads: (origins) Origin: Over the River and through the Woods (20) Lyr Req: Over the River and through the Woods (15) |
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Subject: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 21 Nov 02 - 11:06 PM Exerpts from today's: Wall Street Journal - Front Page. November 21, 2002.
Behind a Thanksgiving Ode, There's a Forgotten Woman
Lydia Maria Child, Feminist, Abolitionist, Author, Gets a Nod in Wayland, Mass. By ROBERT TOMSHO
Over the river, and through the wood,
WAYLAND, Mass. -- Facing a holiday season clouded by talk of economic turmoil, terrorist attacks and war, Unitarian minister Ken Sawyer thinks next Sunday would be a perfect time for members of his First Parish Church to once again sing all 12 verses of the song probably most associated with Thanksgiving.
Often known by its first line, the song has lyrics that actually come from "The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day," a 19th-century poem by Lydia Maria Child, a former resident of this quaint, tree-lined town west of Boston.
"It's good for our kids to know the connection," says Mr. Sawyer, who, through lectures, sermons and other efforts, has worked to rekindle interest in a woman who was once known for far more than a single lilting tune about sleigh rides and pumpkin pie.
He has had help from Joanne Davis, curator of the Wayland Historical Society, which has collected some of Mrs. Child's letters and personal effects. Having painstakingly traced the writer's local movements, she has become the unofficial tour guide for visitors such as a filmmaker who recently arrived to explore a possible documentary on Mrs. Child. "If you read her letters, you get the sense of such a remarkable person," Mrs. Davis says.
Indeed, Lydia Maria Child once seemed destined for enduring fame. At age 22, the baker's daughter stunned the literary world in 1824 with "Hobomok," a daring first novel about a Puritan girl who falls in love with an Indian after her fiance is lost at sea. The young author soon founded the nation's first children's magazine, Juvenile Miscellany, and Edgar Allan Poe later described her fiction as "an honor to our country and a signal triumph for our countrywomen."
But life grew complicated with her marriage to David Child, an idealistic editor-lawyer whose libel convictions and failed business ventures quickly drove the couple toward financial ruin. To raise money, Mrs. Child turned to practical writing such as "The Frugal Housewife," a hugely popular book that offered everything from recipes for cheap cooking to advice on keeping pickles crisp.
Meanwhile, the best-selling author grew close to Boston abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. In 1833, his inspiration led her to publish "An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans," one of the earliest book-length attacks upon slavery. At a time when abolition was still a repugnant notion in much of the North, it called for total equality for blacks and blamed Northern business interests for propping up the slave trade. "They tell us that Northern ships and Northern capital have been engaged in this wicked business; and the reproach is true," Mrs. Child wrote. "Several fortunes in this city have been made by the sale of Negro blood."
Amid the resulting backlash, canceled subscriptions destroyed Mrs. Child's children's magazine. Publishers refused to accept her writing and once-fawning literary patrons shunned her in the street. Suddenly unable to find work as a writer, she resorted to begging for jobs drawing maps and making candy. Financially and professionally, the book "basically killed her," says Carolyn Karcher, author of "The First Woman in the Republic," a 1994 biography of Mrs. Child.
The Thanksgiving poem first appeared in 1844 as part of "Flowers for Children," a three-volume collection of children's stories and poems that Mrs. Child wrote while still trying to regain her financial footing.
After Mrs. Child's death in 1880, some obituary writers ignored her fiction and advocacy writing altogether, mentioning only "The Frugal Housewife." In the ensuing years, local reporters occasionally wrote stories about Wayland's most famous resident, but most focused on the Thanksgiving poem.
Over the river, and through the wood, Eventually set to music by persons whose own names have been lost to time, the poem did not take on a life of its own until after Mrs. Child died. (emphasis added) Indeed, even some friends who praised her other writing acknowledged that she was no poet, says Ms. Karcher, her biographer.
Every few years, Mr. Sawyer has his congregation sing the Thanksgiving song. He thinks it gets people thinking about the joy of coming together.
Over the river, and through the wood,
The pastor also hopes the singing sparks curiosity about the largely forgotten life behind the words. "It has a power for me," he says. "To be reminded that people can respond bravely on behalf of their ideals increases the prospect that one of us might."
Sincerely, |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: katlaughing Date: 22 Nov 02 - 12:22 AM Thank you. What a wonderful article. We always have sung it "to grandmother's house.." |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Dead Horse Date: 22 Nov 02 - 04:59 AM Behind. A thanks giving ode. My behind is a wonderous thing It can perform many a stunt But because of the nasty smells it can make I thank God it's not in the front. I thank you. |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: AllisonA(Animaterra) Date: 22 Nov 02 - 06:10 AM As an elementary music teacher, I sometimes think I'm the only one left who insists on singing this song with the wee ones each year. Now I'm so glad to know some of the story behind the woman! Thanks so much, Garg! |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: katlaughing Date: 23 Nov 02 - 12:23 AM refresh |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,Q Date: 28 Nov 02 - 08:13 PM The complete twelve verses published 1845 may be found at this University of Toronto site: Over the river, and through the wood Also thread 41403: Over the river The DT version differs from the original- to grandmother's house rather than grandfather's, etc., as well as being abbreviated. |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Haruo Date: 28 Nov 02 - 08:59 PM Well, if the proper tune is the one I'm used to (which is not in the DT I guess), then both Guest Q and the WSJ are mistaken, it's six stanzas of eight lines each. The University of Toronto site cited got it half right: the text is given in what look like twelve stanzas, but at the bottom the analysis of the rhyme scheme sets the reader straight, if attention is paid. Haruo |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,Q Date: 28 Nov 02 - 11:41 PM Look at the poem in Poets' Corner, and other sites with the complete verses. New England Boy's The construction is definitely twelve verse, each starting with "Over the river, and through the wood. A two-verse rhyme scheme is used, abccb adeed. As I pointed out in the other thread, this allows easy memorization, although few of us can hold the entire poem in mind for long. If it is recited at Thanksgiving Dinner, don't try to hold it in mind from one year to the next, but re-study it the morning before. I understand at some houses, if the reciter makes a mistake, he/she loses desert. |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Haruo Date: 29 Nov 02 - 12:12 AM If it's a poem you may be right. If it's a song (sung to the usual tune) I beg to differ. The second half of the tune is not just a repeat of the first half. Haruo |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,Q Date: 29 Nov 02 - 12:29 AM Written as a poem. I can't find who set it to music. A few sites say "trad." |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Haruo Date: 29 Nov 02 - 01:46 AM Okay, so I'll grant you it is (or was originally) a twelve-verse poem, but it's still only a six-verse song. The Unitarian minister in the WSJ refers to singing it, as does katlaughing, and I have never heard it declaimed without the tune. (I was taught to sing it in school, probably first or second grade.) Tunes affect versification of texts to which they are applied. For example, "Away in a manger" has 3 stanzas when sung to "Mueller" or "Cradle Song", but only two when sung to "Spilman"; and "Come, thou long-expected Jesus" is a two-stanza hymn sung to "Hyfrydol", but a four-stanza hymn to "Stuttgart". Haruo |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,Q Date: 29 Nov 02 - 07:02 AM Song versions could have different versification; I only know it as a recitation. The poem has been re-written several ways (see Google). Music is available from Amazon Books, "Over the River and Through the Woods," Clifford D. Simak, Jonathan Frakes (Reader). This may not be the tune and/or versification you are looking for. |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,Q Date: 29 Nov 02 - 07:21 AM Kiddies re-write with tune at Over the river Also see thread 41403: Over the river |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST Date: 29 Nov 02 - 07:23 AM Use the link in the thread 41403, above, Nutty, 21 Nov. 01. |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Bat Goddess Date: 29 Nov 02 - 10:51 AM Again, thank you for the post. I wonder, was she (or rather, her husband) a relative of Prof. Francis James Child (born in Boston 1825) of Harvard who, uh, did some work in folk music scholarship? He died in 1896 and is buried in the Sedgwick Pie of the Stockbridge, MA cemetery. Linn |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Haruo Date: 29 Nov 02 - 10:17 PM Guest Q, what side of which ocean are you accustomed to hearing the poem declaimed upon? If in North America are you in US or CA? I consider this song part of the core, normative heritage of "American" culture (in the old McGuffy-to-Dick&Jane melting-pottistic sense I misremember from my pre-Japanese childhood), and will be quite surprised to find there's someplace in the US where it's routinely declaimed and never sung. I was going to post a MID2TXT version of the melody line, but when I got home last night my A Drive died, and I don't have NoteWorthy Composer (or at least not usably) here at church. Nor speakers, alas, so if I find a MIDI I can't tell if it's the "right" tune. The link you posted ("Kiddies re-write") is not working at the moment. Haruo |
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Subject: Tune Add: Over the River and Through the Woods From: Haruo Date: 29 Nov 02 - 11:06 PM Managed to get the church's copy of NWComposer working (it was missing a necessary font), so here's the melody line I consider proper to the text:
MIDI file: overrivr.mid Timebase: 192 Name: Over the River and Through the Woods This program is worth the effort of learning it. To download the latest version of MIDItext and get instructions on how to use it click here ABC format: X:1 If anyone is accustomed to a different tune (RG?), now's a good time to chime in. Haruo |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: GUEST,Q Date: 29 Nov 02 - 11:45 PM Recitation came from my grandfather, who learned the poem from his father in Chicago, and moved to Colorado. He continued to recite it on Thanksgiving as long as he was alive. I also heard it recited in school in New Mexico in the 1930s. At that time, each of us in grade school had to learn a long poem and recite it in front of the class. Some class "teacher's pet" always was selected to recite "Over the River" the day before we took off for the Thanksgiving Holiday. It was an easy one to learn. My wife remembers it from Georgia. You have to be from a younger generation, schooling post-WW2, otherwise you would have had to recite it and others from what, in your stage fright, felt like the famous "burning deck.". Someone always got stuck with THAT one! School recitations have gone out of fashion. Memorization and recitation of poetry and famous speeches and declarations was a normal part of pre-high school curiculum up until about WW2. We had to recite in Latin (to learn reformed academic pronunciation) during a required two-year exposure to Latin in grades eight and nine (late 1930s) in the public school I attended. You also would not make the mistake of equating the early grade school readers (which had short stories, excerpts from longer works and poetry by many authors) with the contrived Dick and Jane stuff presented much later to grade one-two students (and was never used in all schools). McGuffy Readers existed for several sucessive grades and were just part of the usual reading and recitation portion of the school day. The McGuffeys were replaced before my time in grade school (something larger, prettier, and including a higher percentage of American to British Isles and New England material). I know teachers who collect these old readers because they contain material that has gone out of fashion and is scattered through many books now. Since accepting work in Canada, I have never heard the poem either recited or sung here. Would it surprise you to learn that I have never heard the song version? Of course my children, brought up in western Canada, have never heard it. |
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Subject: RE: Behind a Thanksgiving Ode From: Haruo Date: 30 Nov 02 - 12:13 AM In my family the long poem to recite (for which I know no tune) is The Tale of Two Cities (incipit: "On the banks of the mighty Skagit") by Jessie Lee Odlin. But I'm aware that that is a very local item; it would never occur to me to think it an essential ingredient in the melting pot. In grade school I recall having to (or getting to) recite a fair amount of Longfellow; I know at one time I had a large part of Hiawatha and of course The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by heart. You're right that I'm from a post-WW2 generation, but Dick Greenhaus, I think, somewhere wrote that he learned to sing "Over the River" in school ca. 1938. (As I did in the early sixties.) I wasn't actually equating McGuffey readers with Dick & Jane; although I was putatively schooled with the latter (ca. 1961), I was reading well before I entered first grade, and thus emerged bored but unscathed. Rather, I was trying to characterize the "standard American culture" which had at one time been borne upon the wings of McGuffey before degenerating into "See Spot run." This was a culture whose self-image was almost Japanese is its homogenization and the assumption was that immigrant groups (including Negroes and American Indians!) would assimilate to this culture until they were indistinguishable from it, as the Irish and the Norse had just done. Though I know better, I internalized a lot of that culture's assumptions, including (obviously) the notion that everybody in the country sang "Over the River" at Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, more turkey! Haruo |
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