The first appearance of Choucoune in print (Music Highways and Byways, 1936, see above) is under the sub-heading A Musical Travelogue Through Latin America. For the first time in 60+ years I've just noticed the section co-editor is one Irma Goebel Labastille, yet another "Chicago musician."

Irma Goebel, a classically trained pianist, was actually born in Germany and emigrated to Chicago with her parents. She eventually moved to New Jersey and married Ferdinand Labastille himself recently immigrated from… wait for it… Haiti. He was a professor of languages at Columbia U.

I wonder which one of them, if either, did the English translation.

Trivia: Their only child was Creole-American Woodswoman extraordinaire Anne Labastille (circa age 3 years at Choucoune's first printing.)