August 11, 2013

  • Roll Jennie Jenkins, Roll

    I have very fond memories of my Grandma Daniel singing to me when I was a child. I've written about Grandma Daniel before. LINK She would probably have been categorized as a hillbilly. She had a hard life, raising eight children during the Great Depression, following the cotton picking season from Arizona to Arkansas, living on what she could grow. The house I remember her and Grandpa living in was little more than a shack, with the bathroom in a separate building out back. It had once been a simple outhouse, but by the time I was old enough to have memories of visiting, it had working plumbing and a modern toilet, sink and bathtub.

    We loved staying at Grandma's house in the tiny town in the Mojave Desert. I felt like an animal who'd escaped from a zoo whenever we visited there. The wide open desert was our playground and the source of Grandma's fabulous rock collection. I loved sitting on the porch in the early morning, watching Grandma brush her long white hair right after she'd washed it. By the time she finished brushing it, the desert heat had dried it and she would pull it back and twist it into a bun at the back of her neck.

    Her grandchildren never cared that Grandma's house was unpainted and a little rickety. We never thought of her as a hillbilly, or a migrant cotton picker, or a sharecropper's wife. We had enormous respect for her because of her vast storehouse of common sense, her uncanny ability to know what was going to happen before it happened, her love for unusual rocks, her primitive paintings, and the old folk songs she sang to us.

    One of those songs was called Jennie Jenkins. You can find the lyrics here: LINK  Grandma sang it a little bit differently. The "fol-de-rol-de" chorus was a little different in her version, and the reasons for not wearing the colors varied a bit. For instance, in Grandma's version, Jennie won't wear purple, "...it'll make me burple." Because that made her grandchildren laugh.

    I've seen a lot of purple the past couple of days. I took photos and I was going to post them today, but then I started thinking about Jennie Jenkins and the word "burple," Grandma Daniel and her little house in the desert and the fun we had on those long ago summer vacations.

Comments (13)

  • I wish I could have met her.

  • I loved that woman.

  • Your grandma was a beautiful lady.  My oldest boy, when he was little, always said burple instead of purple.

  • I love the photo! What were you whispering in your sisters ear that made you both laugh??

  • Isn't it awesome when we have that connection to history. I loved hearing my grandmother talk about when she was a kid, growing up in the same town, and how life was so different, but so the same. I wish I had known my great-grandparents, who came from Switzerland, but they died when my mom was a kid. My grandma also used to sing a lot of old songs to us, especially when she babysat us sometimes. The one about the Grandfather Clock, and "My Bonnie Sailed Over the Ocean," and a few others that I wonder if she learned from her mother. 

  • That's a wonderful family photo --

  • I just looked up the words to the song.  Is that sung to the tune of "Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy.'?  It fits.

  • A heritage to be treasured! Thank you so much for sharing a little about Grandma Daniel. I am often humbled by how hard previous generations had to labor manually.

  • Made me smile :D ...........your grandma sounds wonderful!

  • There are few things as sweet in this world as sweet as the grandparent/grandchild relationship. <3

  • that is a new song for me. I listened to it over here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5MkP7wy0GA. The  title really caught my eye because I'm Rollie Jennison. Oh, and I like it.

  • @murisopsis - Who knows? I'm sure it was something wholesome... @leaflesstree - I vaguely remember one about a grandfather clock. I'll have to look it up and refresh my memory.@ata_grandma - Now that you mention it, the tune is somewhat reminiscent of Billy Boy, but not exactly the same. @rnjennison - found a link to a You Tube video of the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5MkP7wy0GA@rnjennison - Wow, that brought back memories! I'm not sure if Grandma sang "I won't wear pink cause it makes me stink," or if we added that verse. I noticed it's not included in the lyrics I found or the video you found, so I'm going to guess that was added by us kids. Thank you for the link.

  • Loved this. My grandma taught us lots of old songs too. She was born in Virginia near the Blue Ridge Mountains..

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