Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 04:48 AM

The link in the first post no longer works, and a search for "folksong" on the SMSU website yields two results but nothing relevant. A Google site:msmu.edu search for "folksong" yields a link to the VWML.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 02:32 AM

Hoping for what? I take it that the above post is from Kegan, hoping to see more information and recordings from Reba Dearmore in the future.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 06:03 PM

Still hoping...

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST,Kegan Mahon
Date: 11 Jan 16 - 02:33 AM

I stumbled across Reba's material for the first time this evening, thanks to the Max Hunter archive. She certainly did seem to put a lot of loving warmth into her performances. I hope to see more come to light in the future.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
From: Arkie
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 11:56 AM

Sherri, Thank you for posting here. It is meaningful when family and friends of people mentioned enter in the discussion.

Also, I am gathering information on singers and musicians in the Ozarks and would appreciate the opportunity to add to our limited information on Mrs. Dearmore. If you are interested in helping with this project you can email me at [e-mail].

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST,Sherri - Reba's sister Josephine's daughter-
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 10:47 AM

Listening to Aunt Reba brings joy to my heart. I can still remember her smiling face and positive disposition. We all miss her, but she lives on in her published poetry,songs, and the hearts of her family!

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 01:25 AM

Arkie, yes! I remember that's the title. Thank you so much.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: Arkie
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 04:09 PM

The song you are asking about could be "Copper Kettle" which is not a traditional song but has been very popular with singers interested in folk music.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST,Colleen Devlin
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 03:53 PM

I'm wondering whether someone here might know a song Reba used to sing to us, one of my favorites. I can remember only snippets of the tune and just a bit of the text, but beyond that I'm lost. It's a song about making moonshine, I think, and some of the lyrics say something along the lines of "so take [or lay] me down by the juniper, while the moon is bright [I think that's the correct phrase, or soemthing like]" and "watch that [or those something or others] by the pale moonlight." The rhythm is really lovely, lyrical waltz.

I know that's maddeningly vague, but it's driving me crazy trying to remember.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Jul 04 - 08:54 AM

Colleen, a Mudcatter called "wilbyhillbilly" has just been doing some tape-to-CD projects for some of us, preserving and cleaning up sounds close to our hearts. I know there are many who would love to hear Reba as you knew her.

This is crunch week on a gig for us (crunch for me to prep the music for the band), so it'll be awhile, but I will write, and again, THANK you.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST,Colleen Devlin
Date: 07 Jul 04 - 01:36 AM

Susan, I would be happy to correspond with you. My email is [e-mail].

It's been such a treat to be able to revisit Reba at the website and to hear her sweet voice again. I only wish there were more. She seemed to know every ballad and folk song ever written, and I particularly loved to hear her sing the silliest ones (which she often sang for us when we were very small--in fact, come to think of it, I've got a tape my mother made for me years ago with Reba and us all singing and giggling together--I'm going to have to go find that) and my most favorite, the very poignant old love songs, which invariably tended to end with somebody getting stabbed. She loved the Child ballads and she sang them beautifully.

And Dale, thanks for posting the two links. I love the other story from the Bulletin. My mother started at the paper working for Tom as his secretary in the 60s soon after my family moved from Chicago to Mountain Home, and when it became apparent my mother's skills went way beyond the simply secretarial, he hired her as a writer and photographer. She loved her job, and Tom and Reba remained two of her closest friends.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 06 Jul 04 - 10:57 PM

Yes, thank you, Colleen. I have passed the information on to people at Mountain View who would be interested.

Here is another less formal story from the Baxter Bulletin.

There are also stories from the San Francisco Examiner, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and many other big city papers "From Off", but none could tell the story quite so well as those who knew him throughout his life.

Just one quote from the Bulletin: In the interview with Ripple, Dearmore recalled how during the Depression customers paid for their subscriptions with farm produce. The front office would be stacked with produce and chickens with their legs tied together. The staff would help themselves to some of the goods as they walked out the door in order to keep their families fed until money came in from printing jobs owner Tom Shiras would get from a business. (Shiras was Dearmore's grandfather.)

Susan, you might want to look in at the Guest Book at Roller Funeral Home for additional thoughts from those who knew him and Reba.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 06 Jul 04 - 05:53 PM

Collen, thanks so much. I am still very interested in Reba and Tom, and I would love to correspond.

~Susan Hinton
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: GUEST,Colleen Devlin
Date: 06 Jul 04 - 05:03 PM

I don't know whether this thread is still active. I just stumbled onto it after doing a search.

I've just gotten an obituary notice for Tom Dearmore from an old friend who still lives in Mountain Home. I grew up in Mountain Home, and the Dearmores and my family were lifelong friends. Reba was my first grade teacher, Tom was my mother's editor at the newspaper, and we babysat their kids for years. Reba used to take us around with her now and again on the backroads of the Ozarks when she was on the hunt for songs from the backwoods folks who'd grown up knowing all the old ballads. They were two of the most wonderful people I knew. Brilliant and loving and talented and compassionate. Wherever Reba was, there was always music and good cheer. Here's the link to Tom's obit:

http://cityguide.ozarksgateway.com/fe/mountainhome/Obits/Profile.asp?businessid=60192

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 08:35 AM

Thanks, Dale. Good leads.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 11:41 PM

Susan, you wrote while I was composing, and obviously I did not check back before posting.   As I mentioned in my earlier post, there is at least one recording by her in the archives of the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, AR. At present, our recordings are not available to the public. That is still in the future ~~ getting closer, but still not here.

Anyway, it is of Turnip Greens, which is already available at the Max Hunter site.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 11:35 PM

Just thought of a couple of leads. You might check the Baxter Bulletin, Mountain Home, Arkansas. Perhaps a note to the paper either by Email, or USPS will get you more information.

The Baxter Bulletin
P.O. Box 1750
Mountain Home, AR 72654-1750

Maybe they still have copies of their Centennial Edition from 2001, which certainly would have mentioned the Dearmores who ran the paper for 23 years.

After leaving the Baxter Bulletin, Tom Dearmore went first to the Washington Star, then back to the Arkansas Gazette (one of the forerunners of today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette), then on to the San Francisco Examiner as Editorial Page Editor. He retired from the Examiner in 1991.

Reba B. Dearmore was born 26 Apr 26, died in Contra Costa, CA 27 Feb 89.   Her SS number was issued in Missouri.

That's about all I can do at the moment.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore (Max Hunter Folk Song Collection)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 11:12 PM

Thanks, Dale. When I hear her sing, I almost can't stand it that she's not on the earth anymore. Was Hunter the only one who recorded her or might there have been some more recordings?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 10:18 PM

Lifted from an earlier thread:

Subject: RE: Mountain View Ark. - Ctr of Universe?
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 12 Feb 03 - 09:44 AM

Dale and I did a little search for information on Reba Dearmore some time back and among the folk I polled was Glenn Ohrlin who remembered her. She was the wife of a newspaper publisher in Mountain Home, a town about 50 miles north of here. They were friends of the Driftwoods and came to Mountain View with some frequency. They have long since left the area. Nothing was recalled about where she may have learned her music or where they came from before Mtn. Home, or where they went from there.

About the only thing I can add to what Arkie said is that they moved to Maryland after leaving Mountain Home. As a part of my job, I ran across her performance of Turnip Greens taped at the Ozark Folk Center in April of 1973. There may have been more, but that is the only one I have heard. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 07:24 PM

Still looking for information about Reba Dearmore. Looks like some new items of hers posted this past year at the Hunter site (link above)-- "Anything" is too cute! And "Don't You Want to Go?"--- that VOICE!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore
From: RichM
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 04:42 PM

Reba Dearmore has a wonderful voice!

The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection is a great website too.

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 12:57 PM

I know. Seems everyone but you and me already knew about it! *G*

There is a thread running now with links to the gospel stuff in there, too.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Reba Dearmore
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 12:47 PM

Good grief!! I didn't know this website existed! What a goldmine! Thank you!!!!!

Don Firth

Subject: Reba Dearmore
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Mar 02 - 11:09 AM

Well dang. There is this wonderful singer in the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection, long gone now, and I wonder if she was known outside Mountain Home, Arkansas, while she was on the earth!

You can hear some of her work; just look in the SINGER'S INDEX at the Collection.

That collection is spooky. It's as fresh as being on PalTalk and hearing people sing for the simple joy of passing a well-loved song along to friends. The joy pouring out of her songs and the people playing along with her on some of them....

Sigh..... aw Reba, tell me your life... seems some of her people were from Union County, Illinois.... born Reba Zeta Gertrude Byrd, 1926; died 1989. She married Thomas Lee Dearmore, born 1927.

She's buried there in Mountain Home under a headstone she shares with "Tom," but there's no date on his headstone.... can it be he still lives?

~Susan