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My Mother's Songbooks 06.06.12

My Mother’s Song Books

One of my earliest and fondest memories is watching my mom sitting at
the kitchen table  writing down the lyrics of her favorite songs in a
brown composition spiral bound notebook as she listened to them on the
radio.  Obviously it took many “listenings” for her to eventually
capture all the lyrics.

She had been doing this for years as a young teenager before I was
born and accumulated a big stack of those little notebooks you could
probably buy at the “dime store” in those days for a nickel.

My mom, who is only 16 years older than me, was born Wilma Lorea Dame
and now widowed as Wilma Lorea Ward, was married to Fritz Rowden when
Lois and I were born, and then to Clarence Lindsey, the father of my 5
handsome brothers.

Several years ago I asked her about the books and found out she had
thrown many of them away after my sister had transcribed them into a
computer program.  It took me a while to convince her it wasn’t the
lyrics that I wanted.  It was the old faded notebooks where she had
painstakingly recorded with an ink pen every word.

She had a few of them left and they are now some of my greatest
treasures, dating from 1941 through 1952.

I want to share some of these songs with you.  Let me know if they
bring back memories for you.

This one called Old Age Pension Check has a political element to it.
“ When our old age pension check comes to our door, we won’t have to
dread the poorhouse anymore.  Though we’re old and bent and gray, good
times will be back to stay, when our old age pension check comes to
our door.
When the old age pension check comes to her door, dear old Grandma
won’t be lonesome anymore.  She’ll be waiting at the gate, every night
she’ll have a date, when her old age pension check comes to her door.
There’s a man who’s turned this country upside down with his old age
pension rumor going round.  If you want to have some fun, send your
dime to Washington, and that old age pension man will be around.”

Here is another chorus:  “When it’s roundup time in Texas and the
bloom is on the sage, then I long to be in Texas back a-riding on the
range.  Just to smell the bacon frying, when it’s sizzlin’ in the pan,
drinkin’ coffee from a can.”

One of my favorites which is still sung by old time gospel quartets is
Little Pine Log Cabin:  “I want to see the children playing,  by the
weeping willow swaying,  hear my mother softly praying while the
mockingbird sings (so sweetly),  How my weary heart is yearning, just
to be again returning,  to the little pine log cabin at the end of my
dreams.”

Another one we still find in hymnbooks is “No Tears In Heaven”.
That’s been around a long time, too.

Other titles include My Radio’s Dialed To Heaven, Make Room In The
Lifeboat For Me, I Called and I Called But Nobody Answered, Sun Bonnet
Mother, Little Blossom, Carry Me Back To The Lone Prairie, After The
Ball Is Over and Only A Tramp On The Street.

Included in one of the books is the very first song I learned by heart
and was the first song I sang in church as a solo.  I was just a
little girl, but to this day I can still sing it by memory.  It’s
called the “Alphabet Song” with every letter of the alphabet from A to
Z  representing some facet of the gospel and salvation and Jesus’ work
on Calvary.

One song not in this book but which my dad still sings at church on
Father’s Day is “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine”.  It always brings
tears to the eyes of everyone and especially to my sister and me
because he still has the most beautiful full head of snowy white hair
you will ever see.

As I look through my mom’s songbooks, the melodies of so many of them
come back to me although it’s been 60 years or so since I’ve heard
them.

Some of the titles, like the pension check, are quite humorous.  There
is Alimony Blues, You’re Going To Change or I’m Going To Leave, When
The Lightning Struck The Coon Creek Party Line, Letters Have No Arms,
My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It, and If I Could Learn To Yodel.

Then there is Saving Up Coupons, about cigar stores giving coupons,
with the line, “five million coupons is what my wife cost, I’d give 10
million more just to get a divorce”.

Many of the songs have the theme of a mother’s love and prayers.
Others deal with young love, and broken hearted  lovers,   and some
describe a life of waywardness before returning to the family and the
“old home place”.  And of course the hope of heaven after this life is
over.

People today would probably find them maudlin, but they speak of
values and memories of a day and time most of us would like to return
to, at least for a while.  But I’m sure no young person today would
give up her MP3 player or  iPhone or iPad long enough to sit and write
down every word of the music they listen to.

The last book I have is not filled completely,  and the last page in
it is dated 1952, which would have been about the time she married my
stepfather and began having little baby boys, so I’m thinking there
was little time to listen to the radio, let alone sit down and write
out the lyrics!

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