Help: WWI song about nurse at the front

Subject: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: Barry T
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 01:50 AM

An email correspondent, Bernice Lapointe, visited my tunebook website and asked my help in finding a song from WW1. I couldn't think of a better source of help than ye olde Mudcat Café.

Here's Bernice's request...

I'm searching for the lyrics to an old song from (I believe) the WW1 era. I'm not too sure of the title but it refers to a nurse on the front lines. The title could be "The Rose of No Man's Land", or "Garden of Memories" or "The Red Cross Nurse".

Ring any bells?

- - -

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 02:30 AM

There're two editions in the Levy collection:

Title: The Rose of No Man's Land. Patriotic War Edition.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words by Jack Caddigan. Music by James A. Brennan.
James A. Brennan Publication: New York: Leo Feist, Inc., Feist Building, 1918.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: I've seen some beautiful flowers, grow in life's garden fair
First Line of Chorus: There's a rose that grows on "No Man's Land" and it's wonderful to see


Title: The Rose of No Man's Land.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words by Jack Caddigan. Music by James A. Brennan.
James A. Brennan Publication: Boston: Jack Mendelsohn Music Co., 1918.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 03:12 AM

THE ROSE OF NO MAN'S LAND is in the DT, but the second verse isn't given.

2. Out of the heavenly splendor,
Down to the trial of woe,
God in his mercy has sent her
Cheering the world below
We call her Rose of Heaven
We've learn'd to love her so.

The first of the editions linked to above is also at the Historic American Sheet Music site (CLICK HERE), which is in better condition and the images (enlargeable) clearer.

Recording (the artist's name not given) is on the Popular Songs, 1918 page at The Virtual Gramophon.

The margin at the top of page 2 is clipped from the second Levy sheet, where the words "Dedicated to the American Red Cross Nurse" are written (See David A. Jansen, ed., A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody and Other Favorite Song Hits, 1918-1919 (Dover, 1997, pp. 114-115).

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 05:25 AM

"Eighteen thousand American Red Cross nurses provided much of the medical care for the American military during World War 1, and 4,800 Red Cross ambulance drivers, including Walt Disney and Ernest Hemingway, provided first aid on the front lines. Of those, 296 nurses and 127 ambulance drivers died in service to humanity.

"By the end of the war, the Red Cross had 21 hospitals in France, as well as 12 convalescent homes, 9 infirmaries, 10 dispensaries and 130 canteens.

"Those who have been on the receiving end of their care and compassion will never forget the war time nurse. My great aunt, Annie Meehan, served on the battlefield of World War I as a member of the Carmelites, a medical order of nuns. Recruited in Ireland, she was stationed at Lisieux, France, and was decorated by the French government. Written in 1918 and kept alive by America's barbershop quartet singers, this song is a tribute to all those dedicated women who, with a smile on their lips and fatigue in their eyes, worked to keep death at a distance."

(From THIS PAGE)

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 05:38 AM

Oh that SOUND file link!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:31 AM

This makes me wonder if there are any songs about the women who came before WWI and fought so hard to gain legitimacy for the fledgling nursing profession in Florence Nightingale's time. Anne Perry's mystery novels of Victorian England have a recurring mention of Nightingale and a constant juxtaposition of social issues and the changes which were so desparately needed. When Nightingale came back to England from the Crimean War, nurses were used only for the most basic patient care, carrying slops, changing and washing bed linens, etc. Conditions were less than sanitary and they were usually only a step above prostitutes in the social order, even those who were schooled and knew something about treatments.

kat

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:56 AM

Additions, some nurse songs from the Levy collection:

Title: The Little Red-Cross-Nurse.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words and Music by John H. McDonald.
Publication: Baltimore: Maryland Music Pub. Co., 1918.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: We sing about our soldiers who have cross'd the ocean blue
First Line of Chorus: Nurse, nurse, faithful little nurse, with a red cross on your arm
Dedicatee: Dedicated to The American Red Cross

Title: Dear Little Mary, Soldiers' Nurse.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Lyric and Music by Frank G. McPherson.
Publication: Beaver Falls, Penna.: McPherson Publishers, 1917.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: Why should nations worry, and try to rule the earth?
First Line of Chorus: Dear little Mary, Red Cross Nurse, came like a fairy, to soothe war's curse
"To woman, whom in times of war, Goes forth to save, and loseth not, The lives of them that she has brought. To her, this work is gratefully dedicated."

Title: Good-night, Nurse. Comic Song.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words by Thomas J. Gray. Music by W. Raymond Walker.
W. Raymond Walker Publication: New York: Jerome H. Remick & Co., 1912.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: Now Sam McKee was sick and he was taken to a hospital
First Line of Chorus: Good-night, Nurse! tell the Doctor I'm no better

Title: That Red Cross Girl of Mine.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: By Ed. C. Cannon.
Publication: Toronto, Canada: Ideal Music, 17 Adelaide St., 1917.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: There are Sue and Jane in their uniforms with a band around their arm
First Line of Chorus: I'll go to sleep tonight and dream of that Red Cross Girl of mine

Title: My Red Cross Girlie. The Wound is Somewhere in My Heart.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Lyric by Harry Bewley. Music by Theodore Morse.
Theodore Morse Publication: New York: Leo. Feist, Inc., 1917.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: Ev'ry Red Cross girlie likes a soldier there's a felling in her heart akin to love
First Line of Chorus: My Red Cross girlie, for you I'm calling, tho' you're many miles away

Title: Oh Frenchy.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words by Sam Ehrlich. Music by Con Conrad.
Con Conrad Publication: New York: Broadway Music Corporation, Will Von Tilzer, President, 145 West 45th St., 1918.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: Rosie Green was a village queen, who enlisted as a nurse
First Line of Chorus: Frenchy, oh Frenchy, Frenchy, although your language is so new to me

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 07:02 AM

Kat, perhaps that's why the WWI and WWII Red Cross nurses are still widely maligned as having been of low moral character-- apparently the actions of a few were taken to be the moral compass of the whole lot. Many WWII vets for instance still talk about the "nasty girls" they had heard about.... a whole group of dedicated professionals tarred with an old brush.

NOW it makes sense to me. Thanks.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:22 PM

My family sings a line"
"Through the war's sad curse
Stands the Red Cross nurse.
She's the roe of namana's land."

I have the sheet music for this. If and when I unpack, I will check. Aunt May was known to improvise. And this was among her favorites. Wish she had lived long enough to cross paths with Masato.

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: SINSULL
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:23 PM

Aw crap! Rose not roe. My typo not Aunt May's improvisation.

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Nov 02 - 06:34 PM

Susan, it wasn't just the Red Cross. This was before it even came about, I think. In London, esp. Perry brings it out in her books. Yes, any woman who was a nurse was considered low class, uneducated, and treated little better than a slave, more like a scullery maid and they were NOT to have any airs of being above their station. To be sure, most at that time were low class, drunk a lot of the time, etc. but it was because the job itself was considered not much better than prostitution, so they deliberately hired that type of woman.

Along came Ms. Nightingale and her compatriots AND the men who survived because of their very real knowledge of surgery and field medicine. It was a long, hard struggle, but she and others prevailed much to the dismay of the "old guard" of doctors, etc., even upper crust society, including women, because it was just so unseemly for a woman to act as though she knew anything, esp. about such unspeakable things as bodily functions, disease, raw emotion, pain, etc. Polite society held them in great disdain, figuring that anyone who did know about such things AND worked as a nurse MUST be low class and not worthy of anything but their contempt, thus they MUST also be "loose" women!

It was 130 years ago, today, that Susan B. Anthony cast her first vote to test the law against women voting. All I can say is thank goodness for her, Ms. Nightingale and others like them!

kat

Subject: RE: Help: WW1 song about nurse at the front
From: GUEST,Bernice Lapointe
Date: 06 Nov 02 - 11:22 PM

Hi all - Received so many responses to my request for lyrics to the song "Rose of No Man's Land". Can't thank you all enough. The help from total strangers is remarkable. What a wonderful world we live in.   Thanks so much to all of you. Bernice