Barbara Ellen- Vanhook (KY) 1917 Sharp MS
[My title. Single stanza with music as Bronson 77, from Sharp MSS., 3705. Notes from Sharp's diary follow,
R. Matteson 2015]
Sharp diary 1917 page 149. Monday 21 May 1917 - Berea
Weather very hot but rather better night in my new room. After breakfast make friends with some people of the name of Henry from Louisville. Miss Violet Henry sings me some very interesting songs which she learned as a child on her grandfather’s knee, the grandfather having come from Virginia. After dinner Mrs Vanhook sings me a few fairly good ones. My day is as follows. Breakfast at 7.15, sit on verandah, talk to people and try short walks till 10 when I lie down till dinner at noon. A pipe and a short walk in the verandah and then to bed till 3.30 when Maud makes me tea. Write up tunes etc or letters or sit on verandah till supper at 6, and then go to bed at 8. This evening President & Mrs Frost dine with us at the hotel and kindly promise to make better arrangements about my food with Miss Cameron who is a very ill-natured person who for some reason resents my being here. I have never spoken to her.
[Barbara Ellen]- Sung by Mrs. Joe Vanhook, Berea, Ky., May 21, 1917. Sharp MSS., 3705/.
'Twas in the lovely month of May,
When everything was blooming
Sweet Willie on his death-bed lay
For the love of Barbara Ellen.