Barb'ra Ellen- Jones (KY) 1917 Sharp MS
[My title. Single stanza with music as Bronson 175, from Sharp MSS., 3848. Notes from Sharp's diary follow,
R. Matteson 2015]
Sharp diary 1917 page 234. Tuesday 14 August 1917 - Manchester
Maud not very well. This place is horribly insanitary and I am nervous about her. We go however to Goose Creek again, try Mrs Cis Jones with some result and then tramp 2 or 3 miles further on after the widow Mrs Polly Patrick. She sings some fairly good ones but owns she has not sung love songs for 25 years — "just like others about here" she adds ominously. Call on the Samples on our way back and at their suggestion on Mrs Cis Jones who they tell me used to sing Lamkin. She promises to study it and try to remember it for us. A very nice woman although an adherent of the Holiness sect. I am better — nights have been warmer, if days also — but I have a nasty hacking cough, throat rather than chest.
[Barb'ra Ellen] - Sung by Mrs. Cis Jones, at Goose Creek, Manchester, Ky., August 14, 1917. Sharp MSS., 3848/.
Early, early in the spring
When the flowers just a-blooming
Johnny Green took sick to die
For the love of Barb'ra Ellen.