I've been through my old notes, and found a few of those pen-pictures of Appalachian singers. As with the passage about the Small family quoted above, they tell you a lot about Sharp's and Karpeles' attitudes to, and relationships with, the mountain singers.

On Julie Boone, Micaville, NC [Fair copy notebook, 03/10/1918]:
Mrs. Boone is 49 years old. Her neighbours call her ‘Quar’, i.e. crazy, but this is an exaggeration. She has plenty of brain and talks well and intelligently. But she is very reserved and rarely talks to anyone except when someone talks to her. She lives with her father and a brother, i.e. nominally, for she is rarely at home, wandering all round the country bare-footed and staying wherever she happens to be when it is dark. Her neighbours and kinsfolk like her and she is always welcome in their houses. She was quite ready to sing and evidently enjoyed it. Many of her songs she learned from her father. We had some difficulty in finding her, but eventually traced her at Micaville where she was lodging with a relative, Mr. Tom Chrison (accent on 2nd syllable). Chrison is said to be an Indian name."

Also on Ms. Boone:
[MS Fair copy, 25/9/1918] "[She] evidently had a great deal to do with negroes sometime in her life… she sings many of their spirituals."

On Frances (Mrs. Ebenezer) Richards [Diary, 16.8.1918]
"Then went on a half-mile to a Mrs Ebe Richards, who to our joy proved to be a first-rate singer, the first we have struck this trip. She sang me a dozen and then it was time to get back — nearly 3 p.m! I found our hostess rather sniffy as the two singers we had tapped and were now praising were not on the "approved" list. We were told bloodcurdling stories of the escapades of their fathers & near relations, their rascality & low mentality etc. O these missionaries. Their whole life seems set upon nosing out what is objectionable in anybody — except themselves of course — and ignoring the good."

Maud Karpeles added something even more telling regarding Ms. Richards in her unpublished autobiography (p. 87):
"The last mission school at which we stayed was St. Peter in Franklin County and one of our best singers was Mrs. Ebe Richards with whom we became very friendly. I heard later from Mr. Winston Wilkinson, a collector of folk songs, that he had called at her house to enquire about songs. She was not there, so he explained his mission to her little daughter who offered to fetch her mother from the cornfields. Mrs. Richards came running hot-foot to the house, but when she saw Mr. Wilkinson her face fell and almost weeping she exclaimed: 'But it's not Mr Sharp; and over and over she repeated; 'But he said he would come back.'"

On Aunt Maria Tombs, Nellysford, VA, one of two black singers Sharp met [Fair copy notebook, 22.05.1918]:
"Aunt Maria is an old coloured woman, aged 85, who was a slave belonging to Mrs Coleman who freed her after the war and gave her the log cabin in which she now lives, which used to be the overseer's home. I found her sitting in front of the cabin smoking a pipe. We sang (to) her ... which delighted her beyond anything and made her dub me 'A soldier of Christ'. She sang very beautifully in a wonderfully musical way and with clear and perfect intonation."