Madam I have gold and silver- woman (MI) 1902
[From Hoosier Folklore, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1947), pp. 1-13 in "Folklore at a Milwaukee Wedding" by Richard M. Dorson. His notes follow. The last partial stanza is found in the Courting Case.
R. Matteson 2017]
MICHIGAN BALLADS
(Quite unexpectedly the bride's mother sang to me two verses of a courting song her mother had used to sing to her,
about 1902, in the lumber woods.)
Madam I have gold and silver;
Madam I have house and land;
Madam I have ships on the ocean;
All shall be at your command.
Ready um a doo, doo dum, doo dum
Ready um a doo, doo dum day.
I'll not have your gold and silver ;
I'll not have your house and land ;
I'll not have your ships on the ocean ;
I want and I will have a better-looking man.
Ready um a doo, doo dum, doo dum
Ready um a doo, doo dum day.
Madam you're a saucy maiden . . .
(Later Mrs. Ladwig wrote me in rich detail about the setting in which she heard her mother's songs.) "All of the songs she sang were learned in her girlhood as her married life held no gaiety. She said that her father had been fun loving and fond of singing. They had lived in Otsego County, Michigan, in the towns of Waters and Otsego Lake which were then thriving lumber centers. Her songs may have been local or her father may have brought them from the East. His name was George Van Slyke, of Pennsylvania Dutch origin, I believe. My mother had a marvelous memory . . . . My early childhood was spent in Crawford County, Michigan, where my father had a lumber camp in winter and farmed in summer. My father was stern and there was not much fun at our camp. The men lived in a bunk house a short distance away, we children were not permitted to have anything
to do with them."