When I was in high school, a friend of mine went off to college in Salem, West Virginia, and came back with a lovely bit of a song, The Ivy Leaf. He had gotten it from the published collection of one of his professors, Dr. Patrick Gainer. I felt that there must be more verses to the song, but my friend could not remember any more, Dr. Gainer passed on, and no one, not even the Archive of Folksong at the Library of Congress, seemed to have a copy of the book or know the song. Years passed; I sang it here and there, always asking; I haunt used book stores, and it was on my list; more years passed. Last year, I was at a Civil War artifacts sale, and there among a shelf of books on the Battle of Bull Run and the Death of Lincoln was Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills by PATRICK GAINER! I bought it and turned to The Ivy Leaf. I'd waited 33 years to find-he had only collected the two verses I knew! Finding that book was a triumphant moment, nonetheless. And I still have the fun of the hunt for more verses.

I also have a person I would love to find. Carol Thomason and I went to junior high school together, and we shared a passion for "folk music" She,lucky girl, even went to the Campbell School one summer.
We were very close; I still have a songbook she made for me, with construction paper covers and songs like We Shall Not Be Moved inside. I was devastated when my family moved away, but we kept in touch until she got married. I do not know her husband's name, and I heard vague rumors they divorced in a short time and she left the Washington,D.C. area.That was in the mid-1970s; I have thought of her often over the years. Our junior high school no longer exists, and the high school she attended sent me to the reunion committee and another dead end.