Volume 4, Number 11 - Spring 1973
Mrs. Vance Randolph Collects Folk History
To Mary Celestia Parler Randolph, folk history stands not just a group of facts or an organized collecting of heritage facts; not busywork thought up by some "good doers" or by some one expecting to achieve fame or financial compensation. To Mrs. Randolph folk lore and/or fold history means a way of life that held tight the family, the neighbors and area living.
Mrs. Randolph, speaking to the White River Valley Historical Society on Sunday, said, "I became interested in folk lore when I became interested in Vance Randolph. I was reared in a village in South Carolina. There my father was a doctor who had the second automobile owned by a doctor in the state; my mother, the local historian, was the first woman in the state to learn to drive a car. That is a pretty good background for a teacher of folk lore in the Ozarks."
When the administration of the University of Arkansas, Fayetville, asked Mrs. Randolph if she would take over the teaching of a class in Ozark Folk Lore, the students in the class numbered eight. Immediately the class enrollment went to thirty and was never again less, though often more.
Mrs. Randolph says, "I never say to the students, ‘Respect your grandmother’. I just assume they do. Invariably the students in the class draw nearer to their family". Then she questioned, "How many grandmothers do you know that receive each week or so a letter from a grandson or granddaughter away at college? The grandmothers of my students do, for ‘tis the grandparents who know the stories the grandchild seeks."
Faith or perhaps knowledge sustains Mrs. Randolph in her search for folk lore. She says, "0 yes, even Vance said these folk stories would disappear, but I find folk history and folk stories viable. That is, they do not die easily. Today, students bring in folk stories new to Vance and me."
Mrs. Randolph insists that she does not like the words "Ozark Superstitions", for "the thing
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you believe is not a superstition; to you it is a fact."
Mrs. Randolph showed a film made by CBS in the late fifties. It showed how, sometimes, Mary collected materials. In this picture she sought the words of the song, "The Two Sisters". She went to a mountain home where the hollyhocks stood as tall and straight as the owner. The hillman stood by the porch singing when Mary arrived. She told him of the song she sought. He did not know the words, but he was "purty sure" that brother-in-law, living on the next creek, knew the words. The brother did not know the words, but after playing and singing several songs sent Mary to see Aunt Suzy. Her repertoire did not include "The Two Sisters", but she knew others and sang them and she knew a man now in a hospital who knew the song sought. Mary went to the hopsital where the hillman with leg smashed by a falling log, lay with his guitar, singing as though it eased his pains. But he did not know "The Two Sisters." Mary went from mountain home to mountain home. At long last at a "Play Party" Mary found a pretty young girl singing "The Two Sisters".
As one listened to Mrs. Randolph one wondered if collecting and teaching folk history might, at least, in part account for her compassion and good feeling for her fellow travelers, in life. As we passed through Huntsville taking Mary home, we spoke of a former governor of Arkansas. Mary said of Faubus, "He was one of the most gracious gentlemen I ever knew. I enjoyed visiting with him." . . . She added, "I never voted for him." She told of the village atheist in another town, who always wore an alpaca suit and a black string tie, always accepted, respected and loved by all. Mary added, "He was a gentleman".
In South Carolina as a child, when her parents went to a party, the baby sitter who looked after Mary and her brother told them stories. These were stories handed down by way of mouth. Mary told the one with the howling dogs. Even after many years Mary could make you hear the dogs a barking and a yelping, just as though you stood on an Ozark Mountain and saw the animals.
Vance Randolph wrote down the stories he collected from Eureka Springs, Arkansas to Galena, Missouri, and all across the Ozarks. They have been published in books. The first editions, we sell at collector’s prices. Mrs Randolph just jots down her stories and puts them in the filing cabinets. When Myking asked her, "Will some student use them for research for a Ph.D. degree? "Mrs. Randolph answered "There’s material enough for a dozen Ph.D’s."
Mary and Vance live in the Skull Creek apartments. Mary sought the story of such a name. She had heard of bleaching bones and scary situations. She learned that a man named Scull was rector of the first Episcopal church in Fayetville. For him was named, the nearby creek. Somewhere along the time, some one misspelled the name and likely concocted a story to fit the spelling.
After teaching at the University for more than twenty years. Mrs. Randolph retired last year. The University called her back, this year to teach again "Ozark Folklore" on a half-time schedule.
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