I guess no one here ever plays my records- but my tear-jerker from the album, "None But One," was the "Two Little Children," just named in Black Hawk's post ("Two Little Orphans"). The reason it's there is that our producer, Al Steckler, who when invited to produce the album, sent word that he would do it if, "Two Little Children" would be included! He had heard it on an older record of mine and was apparently captivated. I'll give just a verse or two:

Two little children, a boy and a girl
Sat down by the old church door;
The little girl's feet were as brown as the curl
That fell on the dress that she wore.

The little boy's coat was all ragged and torn,
A tear shone in each little eye.
Why don't you go home to your mama, I said,
And this was the maiden's reply

Mama's in heaven- angels took her away,
Left Jim and I all alone,
We've no one to love us since Papa's away,
And we have no Mama nor home.

And so it goes- you know it, some of you. My belief is that, amongst the church people (most of us in Eastern KY), if a song was not religious, in order for it to be accepted in the community it had to be about things held sacred- Motherhood, Orphans, Sailors lost at sea, train wrecks with good people aboard ("...Old # Nine, etc.) I don't know why happy endings couldn't be considered sacred! Or maybe emotions could only be allowed to be expressed at sadness and tragedy, and menfolks especially needed an excuse to shed tears. For whatever reason, the sad songs seemed to be the most popular kind, in that one era (Victorian times to the early 1920s I'd say, for our region). I suppose they were our version of broadsides, which were the newspapers of an earlier time. Tragedy sells; happy things don't.