A Few Songs About MINNIE DEAN

“The Magdalene Laundry” and other such films and reports, have brought to light many sad tales of infant/child/mother mistreatment and mortality, particularly in Ireland and the US, with many babies and children lost to mothers, not only from a weak constitution or disease, but through institutional neglect (some deliberate), and some from perhaps even outright killing? - with the potentially “lucky” ones on-sold to well-heeled buyers. Events perpetrated by Govt and Religious institutions which, rather than “caring” for, were seemingly intent on punishing mothers who were unmarried and/or poor, and were therefore apparently grossly distasteful and immoral, particularly to many of those “great minds and small hearts” of the Victorian era.

This NZ song refers to the only woman hanged in NZ (in 1895) and who, it seems, was someone who lovingly took care of the evidence of your daughter’s shame, or the mother with far too many mouths to feed, and who thus enabled families to continue to live in polite society.

Minnie (born Williamina McCulloch, in Scotland), is still the sad but interesting subject of books and conjecture – was she a monster, was she a long-time sufferer of post-partum depression – was she some sort of public service for assauging society’s guilty moral attitudes – or was she, as she claimed standing on the hangman’s trapdoor - Innocent?    Trial by media is not a modern thing, by any means.

Interestingly (to me!), Minnie Dean of Winton (north of Invercargill), was allegedly “plying her trade of baby-farming” around the time and place my GGGrandfather was rearing his family in South Island, post his goldmining exploits and now a nearby Waianiwa farmer and Invercargill pub-owner. As a publican, he no doubt heard much gossip and many a tale concerning this local woman!

There is much to read on-line. But try these :
https://adventure.nunn.nz/2019/10/30/the-strange-sad-case-of-minnie-dean/         
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/minnie_dean.shtml
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/black-sheep/story/2018761597/baby-farmer-the-story-of-minnie-dean
https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2d7/dean-williamina


THE BALLAD OF MINNIE DEAN [1]

Helen Henderson

[ Helen was brought up in Invercargill. "Minnie was like the bogeyman of our town when I was a kid," she says.
"If you were giving cheek to your mum or being naughty it was like: 'You better watch or I'll send you off to Minnie Dean's farm and you'll never be heard of again.'
http://www.folksong.org.nz/minniedean/index.html ]


Chorus
       Minnie Dean, Minnie Dean, she's gonna ge'cha
       And take you away on the afternoon train.
       Oh, you'd better be good, coz Minnie Dean's gonna ge'cha
       And you'll never, ever, be heard of again.

   
1. She dressed in black and she carried a hat in
    a hat box when early to the station she came,
    And on her way back, she'd always wear the hat
    Invercargill to Winton, on the 5 o'clock train.


2. She was so sweet and gracious to the girls and the ladies
   A home for their babies she said she'd provide,
   It was all done in private and money was provided
   As she wrapped up their little ones and took them away.
   

Bridge:
           Here lie the children nobody wanted         
           Minnie died for her sins and the people they cried
           They cried for themselves and they cried for their children
           They cried for Minnie and for closing their eyes.

   
3. She dressed in black and she carried a hat in
    a hat box when early to the courthouse she came,
   "Judge, I'm innocent" she said, "They just disappeared"
   (“They got lost in the garden” “They crawled under the bed”)
    But they hanged her from the gallows until she was dead.
   
             . . . No, you'll never be heard of again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BLvvllCWH4     Helen Henderson


Other songs about Minnie Dean :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r64jMxUacYw Marlon Williams & the Yarra Benders
(who would be recognisable to ABC viewers from his musical appearances in “The Beauiful Lie” drama, in 2015)

THE BALLAD OF MINNIE DEAN [2]

Marlon Williams

Minnie was a mother to a hundred or more
In Winton town
Red-faced mamas coming knocking on her door
With a whole ten pounds
Winter in the south makes the heart beat slow
But hearts beat slower in the garden below.

Then three went missing and the men start digging in the ground (ground)
Men start digging in the ground (three found)
Bring poor Minnie downtown
But a woman won't hang in Winton town.

Hundreds in the room when Minnie stood trial
Many more outside
Oh Minnie, you're accused of a serious crime:
Infanticide
The crowd all cheered as the gavel rang
But have mercy on the soul of the women you hang.

Then they carried her away and the crowd all followed her down (down)
The crowd all followed her down (three found)
Everybody gathered round
To see a woman hang in Winton town
Oh see a woman hang in Winton town.


MINNIE DEAN [3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqj9UUvdf5Y – BULLETBELT (NZ) – perhaps only press play if you enjoy the effects of thrash-death metal :)

MINNIE DEAN [4]
“….. written by Marylyn Hayes and Brendon Fairbairn. It is on the Passing time CD, Invercargill, N.Z. 2000, by New Zealand celtic folk music group Run the Cutter.”
Which I haven’t yet found on-line ……



R-J