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Jane Hicks Gentry

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Jane Hicks Gentry (December 18, 1863 – May 25, 1925) was an Appalachian folklorist and singer, born in Watauga County, North Carolina. She was known for her riddles and the "Jack, Will and Tom Tales", in addition to the songs she recorded for Cecil Sharp. All were believed to have originated in England, Scotland or Germany, and passed down through Jane's family to her.

Jane Hicks Gentry
Born
Jane Hicks

(1863-12-18)December 18, 1863
Watauga County, North Carolina
DiedMay 25, 1925(1925-05-25) (aged 61)
Madison County, North Carolina
Resting placeOdd Fellows Cemetery
Hot Springs, North Carolina
Known forAppalachian folklore and songs
SpouseJasper Newton Gentry
Children9
Parent(s)Ransom Merritt Hicks
Emily Harmon

Background

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She was the oldest of five children born to Emily Harmon and Ransom Hicks. Her brothers and sisters were John Riley, Mary, Margaret Elizabeth and William.[1] The paternal Hicks lineage were emigrants from England who arrived in America prior to the American Revolutionary War.[2] The Harmons in the maternal lineage came to America from Wurttemberg, Germany, also before the American Revolutionary War. When Emily was about 12 or 13 years old, they joined other families in moving to Madison County, on the Meadow Fork of Spring Creek, where they began to invest in farm acreage. As Emily worked inside their home, surrounded by the children, she sang songs and told stories and riddles that been passed along through the Harmon family.[3] Jane had only a rudimentary education, but learned the basics of reading in order to facilitate her reading of the Bible.[4]

Jane married Jasper Newton "Newt" Gentry in 1879, and the couple had nine children (Lydia Nora, Martha Emily, Mary Magdalene, Alfred Chanay, Allie Mae, Lillie Bertha Maud, Roy Stevens, Lalla Marvin, Nola Jane). Their youngest child was born after they moved to Hot Springs. There they bought acreage on which they raised livestock and farm produce. The Gentry children were enrolled in the Presbyterian-run Dorland Institute, their tuition paid through income from a grocery store run by Newt, where he sold produce grown on their land. Jane earned money by working at the school. Over the years, she supervised students who also worked at the school. Jane became part of the school's culture by continuing to tell her stories, sing a little and dance for the students and faculty.[5]

Eventually Jane ran a boarding house that welcomed students and faculty of the school. A friend of the family remembered, "She wove, spun, tatted, knit, crocheted, and she was always teaching other people to do these things. And she would sing and tell stories while we worked. It seemed natural for her to sing and tell stories."[6] The United States government turned Mountain Park Hotel at Hot Springs into a World War I prisoner-of-war internment camp for German sailors.[7] Families of the prisoners lived in town, some at Jane's boarding house.[8]

Songs and stories

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English folk song collector Cecil Sharp and his colleague Maud Karpeles were invited to Appalachia by American folklorist Olive Dame Campbell in 1916 to seek out old songs and ballads, especially those that had travelled from the British Isles.[9] It was Dorland principal Lucy Shafer who suggested they meet Jane Gentry. From August 24, 1916 until July 27, 1917, Sharp and Karpeles made several visits to notate Jane's songs, obtaining a total of 70 from her.[10]

Table: Ballads and Songs Sung By Mrs. Jane Gentry and Collected by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil James Sharp, Published in: English folk songs from the southern Appalachians[11]
Date Sung Entry Type Title Scale
1 Sept. 12, 1916 1 B Ballad The False Knight Upon the Road Pentatonic Mode 3, b (no 6th)
2 Sept. 11, 1916 4 A Ballad The Two Sisters Pentatonic Mode 3
3 Aug. 24, 1916 7 A Ballad Edward Heptatonic Mode 4 a+b (mixolydian)
4 Aug. 24, 1916 13 B Ballad The Cherry-Tree Carol Pentatonic Mode 3
5 Aug. 24, 1916 14 Ballad Fair Annie Pentatonic Mode 3
6 Aug. 24, 1916 15 A Ballad Young Hunting Hexatonic Mode 2, a
7 Aug. 24, 1916 16 E Ballad Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor Pentatonic Mode 1
8 Aug. 24, 1916 19 Ballad The Wife of Usher's Well Hexatonic Mode 2, a
9 Aug. 24, 1916 20 B Ballad Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard Pentatonic Mode 3
10 Sept. 12, 1916 23 Ballad Lamkin Pentatonic Mode 3 (Tonic A)
11 Aug. 25, 1916 25 Ballad Johnie Scot Pentatonic Mode 3
12 Sept. 14, 1916 27 D Ballad The Gypsy Laddie Hexatonic Mode 4, b
13 Sept. 14, 1916 28 B Ballad Geordie Hexatonic Mode 2, a
14 Sept. 12, 1916 29 H Ballad The Daemon Lover Hexatonic Mode 4, a
15 Aug. 24, 1916 30 Ballad The Grey Cock Heptatonic, Mode 3, a+b (mixolydian)
16 Sept. 16, 1916 32 A Ballad Our Goodman Pentatonic Mode 3 (no 6th)
17 Sept. 12, 1916 35 A Ballad The Golden Vanity Heptatonic Mode 4, a+b (dorian)
18 Sept. 14, 1916 38 D Ballad In Seaport Town Heptatonic Mode 4, a+b (mixolydian)
19 Aug. 25, 1916 40 A Ballad Shooting of His Dear Pentatonic Mode 1 (no 6th)
20 Aug. 25, 1916 46 A Ballad Edwin in the Lowlands Low Pentatonic Mode 1
21 Sept. 12, 1916 48 Ballad The Green Bed Hexatonic Mode 4, b
22 Aug. 26, 1916 55 A Ballad Jack Went A-Sailing Pentatonic Mode 3
23 Aug. 25, 1916 56 A Song The Rejected Lover Hexatonic Mode 2, a
24 Sept. 14, 1916 64 D Song The Wagoner's Lad Pentatonic Mode 1
25 Sept. 12, 1916 65 E Song Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies Hexatonic Mode 4, a (If C be tonic: Mode 3, a).
26 Aug. 24, 1916 68 Song William and Polly Hexatonic Mode 3, b
27 Sept. 14, 1916 72 D Song Early, Early in the Spring Pentatonic Mode 3
28 Aug. 24, 1916 82 A Song George Reilly Heptatonic Mode 2, a+b (dorian) (If G be tonic: Mode 4, a+b mixolydian)
29 Aug. 24, 1916 83 A Song Johnny Doyle Hexatonic Mode 4, a (If D be tonic: Mode 3, a)
30 Sept. 16, 1916 89 A Song My Boy Billy Hexatonic Mode 3, b.
31 Aug. 24, 1916 95 B Song Pretty Peggy O Hexatonic Mode 1, b
32 Aug. 24, 1916 97 B Song The Sheffield Apprentice Hexatonic Mode 2, a
33 Aug. 25, 1916 98 B Song The Broken Token Heptatonic Mode 3, a+b (with flattened 7th)
34 Aug. 25, 1916 101 B Song The Brisk Young Lover Heptatonic Mode 1, a+b (mixolydian)
35 Aug. 24, 1916 108 A Song My Mother Bid Me Pentatonic Mode 3, a
36 Sept. 12, 1916 110 A Song The Tree in the Wood Pentatonic Mode 3
37 Sept. 12, 1916 111 Nursery Song The Farmyard Pentatonic Mode 3 (no 6th)
38 Sept. 12, 1916 112 Nursery Song The Drummer and His wie Pentatonic Mode 1 (If G be tonic: Mode 3)
39 Sept. 12, 1916 113 Nursery Song The Bird Song Pentatonic Mode 2
40 Sept. 15, 1916 117 Nursery Song Sing, Said the Mother Hexatonic Mode 3, b
41 Sept. 15, 1916 118 Nursery Song I Whipped My Horse Pentatonic Mode 3
42 Sept. 15, 1916 119 A Nursery Song A Frog Went A-courting Hexatonic Mode 3, b (Tone F)


Sharp did not comment specifically on the likely origin of her songs, but believed that in general the older Appalachian ballads came from England or Lowland Scotland. Holgar Nygard, Professor Emeritus of English at Duke University, suggested that Scotland was the more likely source for many of the songs in Jane's repertoire, but Brian Peters, in a detailed study of Sharp's Appalachian collection, showed that ballads such as "Barbara Allen", "Little Musgrave" and "Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender" most likely originated in England.[12][13]

Jane referred to her stories as "Jack, Will and Tom Tales". Musician and historian Betty N. Smith compared the structure of the tales to German Märchen fairy tales, but speculated that they may have originated with the Hick's English ancestors.[14] Author Irving Bacheller and his wife Anna first met Jane at her boarding house in 1914, telling stories and riddles to delighted children. The Bachellers were so impressed with Jane that they invited her to visit them in Greenwich, Connecticut. According to Betty N. Smith's research, the visit was incorporated into Bacheller's novel Tower of a Hundred Bells, destroyed by a house fire in 1917, a fact confirmed after Jane's death, in a letter from Bacheller to her daughter Maud Long, "I wrote a book largely about your mother and her mountain life which was destroyed by a fire that burned my home in 1917."[15]

Fifteen stories of Jane's were contained within twenty-three stories total published by Isabel Gordon Carter in The Journal of American Folklore in 1925. The other stories in the published work were six by Susie Wilkenson of Sevier County, Tennessee, and two stories by John Campbell of Townsend, Tennessee. As noted by Carter, folklorists of the time had primarily collected songs and overlooked the stories. When Jane was asked to tell the tales for this work, she confirmed in part that the stories had been passed down in the family, from her great-grandmother passing them down to Jane's grandfather Council Harmon.[16]

Jane's daughter Maud Long later recorded some of the stories for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress.[17]

Death

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Newt Gentry died March 24, 1922.[18]

Jane died in May 1925. Her obituary noted her knowledge of old English and Scottish folksongs.[19][20]

Bibliography

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  • Smith, Betty N. (2015). Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-4835-9 – via Project MUSE.

References

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  1. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 25–26.
  2. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 12–13.
  3. ^ Smith 2015, p. 27.
  4. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 22–23.
  5. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 31, 41, 43–45.
  6. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 46–47.
  7. ^ "Life At Hot Springs Internment Station For German Sailors". The Asheville Times – via Newspapers.com (subscription required) . November 11, 1917. p. 5. Retrieved December 28, 2017.; Eggers, Paul (September 17, 2017). "Hot Springs and the Great War". The Asheville Citizen-Times – via Newspapers.com (subscription required) . p. AA1. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
  8. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 47–48.
  9. ^ "Jane Gentry Centennial". Cecil Sharp in Appalacia. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
  10. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 67–74.
  11. ^ Campbell, Olive Dame; Sharp, Cecil James (1917). English folk songs from the southern Appalachians Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes (PDF). G.P. Putnam's Sons, London and New York, The Knickerbocker Press – via IMSLP.
  12. ^ Smith 2015, p. 78.
  13. ^ Peters, Brian (2018). "Myths of 'Merrie Olde England'? Cecil Sharp's Collecting Practice in the Southern Appalachians". Folk Music Journal. 11 (3): 6–46. JSTOR 44987648.
  14. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 56–58.
  15. ^ Smith 2015, pp. 50–55.
  16. ^ Carter, Isabel Gordon (1925). "Mountain White Folk-Lore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge". The Journal of American Folklore. 38 (149): 340–374. doi:10.2307/535236. JSTOR 535236.
  17. ^ "Jack Tales told by Mrs. Maud Long of Hot Springs, N.C. AFD 47" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved December 28, 2017.; "Jack Tales II told by Mrs. Maud Long of Hot Springs, N.C. AFD 48" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
  18. ^ Smith 2015, p. 96.
  19. ^ Smith 2015, p. 98.
  20. ^ "Mrs. Jane Gentry Dies At Her Home". The Asheville Citizen-Times – via Newspapers.com (subscription required) . June 10, 1925. p. 18, col. 3. Retrieved December 28, 2017.
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