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Subject: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Bennet Zurofsky Date: 30 Aug 02 - 05:36 PM Can anyone help me to sort out the blood and marital relationships, if any, between Aunt Molly Jackson, the fine Kentucky singer of traditional and radical songs (many of which she wrote herself) and these other fine Kentucky singers of traditional and radical songs (many of which they wrote themselves): Jim Garland (brother?) Florence Reese (sister-in-law?) Sarah Ogan Gunning (sister?) This seems to have been a supremely talented family of singer-songwriters that is too little remembered today. Aunt Molly, in particular, is one of the finest singers that Alan Lomax ever recorded and that she is too often overlooked. She not only wrote some of the most powerful radical songs the US has produced, she was also an excellent singer of traditional songs, including Child Ballads. Can anyone explain to me why there has never even been a single cd published of her singing? Rounder published a fine lp of her Library of Congress recordings back in the 1970's, but it never seems to have been republished as a cd and I don't think there is anything else that is even remotely available. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: artbrooks Date: 30 Aug 02 - 05:45 PM Her recording "John Greenway" is available from Smithsonian/Folkways, either cassette or CD, here (also here). Sorry I can't help at all with the geneology question...I can't even figure out my own! |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: katlaughing Date: 30 Aug 02 - 06:06 PM Well, I am surprised because I usually don't have much luck at www.artistdirect.com, but this time they had something! Here ya go: Aunt Molly Jackson was not only an old-time country singer/songwriter who spent much of her career trying to preserve the traditional mountain folksongs of her native Kentucky, she was also influential in the struggle for miners' rights during the '20s and '30s. She was born Mary Magdalene Garland in Clay County, Kentucky. When she was only six, her mother starved to death; she married at 14 and then watched as the coalmines killed her brother, husband and son. Shortly thereafter, Jackson began to express her grief and anger by writing songs such as "Poor Miner's Farewell" and "Dishonest Miller." Through the 1920s, Jackson continued to work for miners' rights; in 1931, she went to New York and recorded a single containing "Kentucky Miner's Wife." She relocated to New York to continue her fight, befriending other musicians on the New York folk scene including Woody Guthrie. In 1935, folklorists Alan Lomax and Mary Barnicle convinced Jackson to record 150 songs for the Library of Congress, which took her four years. After appearing with Leadbelly and Josh White in the Cavalcade of American Song in 1940, Jackson eventually settled in California, where she lived until the folk revival of the late '50s. Her music was an important part of that revival, although Aunt Molly never received a single dime in royalties for the protest songs she had written. In 1960, impoverished and nearly forgotten, Jackson was working on an autobiographical LP with John Greenway when she died suddenly. During the 1970s, some of the songs she recorded for the Library of Congress were released on a Rounder anthology. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Music Guide |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST,MCP Date: 30 Aug 02 - 06:08 PM According to one of my reference books Sarah Ogan Gunning was the sister of Jim Garland and half-sister to Aunt Molly Jackson. She was the daughter of miner, Baptist minister and labour organiser Oliver Perry Garland and married Andrew Ogan when she was 15. After Andrew died (in 1938)she married Joseph Gunning in 1941. As far as I can tell Florence Reece was not related. There is also some information about them online at Appalachian Protest Songwriters Some protest songs from the mines can be found at Songs From The Mines Mick |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Stewie Date: 30 Aug 02 - 09:01 PM In the informative booklet insert to Sarah Ogan Gunning's 'Silver Dagger' LP (Rounder 0051), there is a brief biography by Jim Garland. It confirms what MCP indicated in the previous posting. Garland begins:
This is a brief biography of Sarah Gunning and the singing Garland clan which includes our father, Oliver Perry Garland, my mother, Elizabeth Lucas Garland, my sisters, Sarah and Aunt Molly Jackson, and myself, Jim Garland, as well as the rest of the 15 children in the family. Garland goes on to say that his father's first wife died, leaving 2 children, Molly and John, and his mother was 18 when she married him as his second wife. Garland wrote:
Molly was headstrong even then and Mother could not control her when Dad was away since she was only 11 years older than Molly. But John would whip the stuffing out of her when she was giving my mother a hard time. Garland's mother had 11 children with Oliver Perry Garland with Sarah being the tenth one born. There was also a younger child named George who died when very young. --Stewie. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Stewie Date: 30 Aug 02 - 09:14 PM Including George, who died young, judging by Garland's comments, there seems to have been 14 children - I can't figure out the '15 children in the family' from Garland's subsequent statements. Curious. --Stewie. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: CHRISTMAS EVE ON THE EAST SIDE (Jackson) From: Charley Noble Date: 30 Aug 02 - 09:57 PM While we're waiting for the tune to come in, here's another song by Aunt Molly Jackson from the Draft Housing Song Book: CHRISTMAS EVE ON THE EAST SIDE (Words and music by Aunt Molly Jackson Circa 1936 As recorded by Alan Lomax and Elizabeth Barnicle, 1939 Recorded on Aunt Molly Jackson, Rounder Records 1002)
When Aunt Molly Jackson arrived in New York City in 1931, after years of struggle as a union organizer in the Kentucky coal fields, she found the forces of oppression and exploitation also at work in the Lower East Side tenement slums. She soon began writing songs and speaking out at demonstrations to protest these and other issues affecting the welfare of lower-income people. In this song, she begins by describing conditions in her apartment, with the utilities shut off on Christmas Eve.
My heart it is breaking; it's Christmas Eve night. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST,MCP Date: 31 Aug 02 - 07:08 AM Stewie - according to my book "As children, she and her brothers were taught traditional ballads by their mother (after her death Sarah's father married Sarah Elizabeth Lucas, who bore eleven more children)" Mick |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Rick Fielding Date: 31 Aug 02 - 11:13 AM If you want a lot of the details (and they're fascinating) check out the new biography of Aunt Molly, called "Pistol Packin' Mama" written by my buddy Shelly Romalis. If I can, I'll get her to drop by with some more information. Cheers Rick |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Stewie Date: 31 Aug 02 - 05:51 PM Mick, unless I'm misreading you, that does not clarify it for me. Oliver Perry Garland had 2 children by his first wife, one of whom was Molly. His second wife bore him '11 more', including Jim and Sarah - 2 plus 11 equals 13. Add in George, who apparently died in infancy, and you have 14 - this is 1 short of the total of the '15 children in the family' that Jim Garland referred to in the first sentence of his 'brief biography'. --Stewie. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST,shelly romalis Date: 31 Aug 02 - 06:44 PM Hi folks...great to see interest in Aunt Molly! She was a truly amazing and complex woman...a fascinating mixture of midwife and activist, creator of songs (that others claimed to write) and stories (that others claimed were false). She was "discovered" at the age of 50 by a group of famous radical writers who went to Appalachia in 1931 to investigate the conditions in the coal fields. They brought her to New York City to raise money for the miners' My book, that Rick referred to-- talks about Aunt Molly's life, her relationships with half-sister Sara Ogan Gunning and half-brother, Jim Garland--they shared a father). I tell about Molly's life and the contrasting worlds she experienced as well as some of the issues that engage anthropologists and folklorists-- the making of oral tradition, history, place, class and culture. Here are the details: Pistol Packin' Mama:Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics of Folksong, University of Illinois Press, 1999. They have it at some bookstores but since it's not exactly a hot seller, you might need to order it or find it at the library. Ciao, Shelly |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST,MCP Date: 01 Sep 02 - 07:03 AM Stewie. Sorry, my source doesn't make it clear how many children Oliver had with his first wife. However the entry for Sarah on the Appalachian Protest Singers link I quoted above also states "Gunning was born in 1910 and was raised in the coal mine camps of eastern Kentucky with fourteen siblings". Mick |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Rick Fielding Date: 01 Sep 02 - 10:12 AM Thanks Shelly. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Abby Sale Date: 01 Sep 02 - 12:26 PM Shelly: Good stuff. I'll check Amazon.com et al. Meantime, do you have her exact date of birth? This seems to be a fairly obscure item. Thanks. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST,shelly romalis Date: 15 Sep 02 - 11:26 AM Sorry Abby..I didn't see your question until just now. My best guess re: Molly's date of birth is early September, 1880. Shelly |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST,Harold Miller Date: 26 Jan 03 - 01:17 PM My mom (Folssie) which is the niece of Aunt Molly Jackson and Sarah Ogan Garland Knew them well. When I started my research on Molly Jackson, I called her for information. She has told me personal experiences of them. It surprised her when i asked about 15 kids O.P. Garland was supposed to have. She told me of John amd Molly from 1st marriage and 8 from second marriage. She told of knowing Robert(Bob)--Bill Garland(preacher)--Richard(Dick)--Jim--Sarah--Lona(her mother)and and a young lad that died possibly from small pox. His name is possibly Wilson. She doesnt recall the infant George. The other children Is a mystery. I visited Sarah in Hart Mich. With the Information my mom supplied me I made a small family tree. I am amazed at the information on Molly and Sarah. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Abby Sale Date: 26 Jan 03 - 04:05 PM Harold, did you "inherit" any songs. Does your tree gove her date of birth? I still haven't found it. |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: GUEST Date: 28 Jan 04 - 12:51 AM Hello All researching Molly, Oliver Perry Garland was the son of William " Razor Bill" Garland and Delphia Lucas of Clay County Kentucky. My great grandmother was Eliza Garland Partin, sister of Oliver Perry Garland... The Wilson that you mentioned, may have been Wilson Garland, as they had a brother by that name. Sarah Lucas' father was also named Wilson Lucas. I recently found a picture of Aunt Molly and one of Jim Garland in a Bell County Kentucky History Book. I would be happy to share what I have found on the Lucas/ Garland Family. Thanks, Patti |
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Subject: RE: Aunt Molly Jackson family tree? From: Joe Offer Date: 19 Jan 08 - 03:21 AM Click here for an interesting piece on Aunt Molly Jackson, from the University of Virginia American Studies program. -Joe- |
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