Joe asked, 'So, is this a Niles composition?'

I have the book with If (ef)I Had a Ribbon Bow in it right before me. He wrote:

First recorded at Ebenezer (Mercer County) Kentucky. ...The woman who first sang me this song was about twenty-three years of age. She was the mother of three children. It seems that her husband had disappeared....

In 1919 I met a white-haired old lady in Winchester, Ky, who had spent most of her life teaching in the Mountains. She sang me 'Ef I had a Ribbon Bow' in almost exactly the same way in which I had recorded it at Ebenezer ten years before.
======