Damson and Peach
a new song for Mawmaw
I’m so excited to share this song with you because it’s been swimming around in my mind since last summer and it finally came together over the last month. If you’ve been a longtime follower of my music, you’ll know that many of my songs are inspired by my paternal grandmother, Mawmaw. She has told me all kinds of things over the years which have turned into songs. Even the simplest stories move me.
Last summer, when I was collecting bloodroot for dyeing cloth and yarn,1 I asked her about other plants from her childhood. She told me about collecting lady slippers for her mother’s Mother’s Day bouquet.2 She also talked about finding teaberry with her siblings and eating the berries and the leaves. In January, when I spoke with her on the phone from England, she talked about two different creeks which ran down in the valleys on either side of their house — the house where she still lives.
When they were children, they had no well, so they took buckets down to the creek. This was a big job on Mondays when they did the washing by hand in giant tubs on washboards3. These creeks were also the places to find lady slippers and tea berries. The laurels grew all along the mountain and the bloodroot slept in the loamy places and where the sand stone had crumbled making a nice bed for them.
Mawmaw grew up with two brothers and four sisters. She was in the middle of the sisters. Their whole lives, the sisters have called each other, visited each other, lived amongst each other, and supported each other in little decisions like which earrings go best with that outfit to life-shattering divorce and bereavement. Two of her sisters, Edith and Katherine4, passed away in the last few years. They told me many stories, too, especially Aunt Edith who has inspired so many of my songs5.
They all loved their mother and father so much and Mawmaw lived with her mother until Narcie passed away at the age of 97. This year, Mawmaw will be 91. When I look at her life from the outside, I see her and her sisters in a dance, weaving through each others lives, making choices that distinguished them from each other, but often confirmed their blood bond. All through their dance, their mother and Jesus were at their center. They gathered round Narcie and Jesus and then danced and returned, always returning.
Sometimes, I think I’ve asked Mawmaw every question which could bring a new story. But in one of our recent talks, for the first time ever, she told me about all of the fruit trees which grew between our family cabin and Aunt Erma6 and Uncle Frazier’s house. Damson, plum, cherry, peach, apple, and pear. Of all the trees, only the apples are left, as far as I know. These trees weren’t ornamental, but provided delicious variety to their home-grown meals. They were also good for canning and a real treat during winter.
I feel very lucky to have my own sister who spent childhood summers with me at our grandmothers’ houses and who travelled through the woods with me last summer telling me to watch out for snakes7. Like Mawmaw and her sisters, we braid our lives around each other in our own way choosing the damson or the peach, but walking through the same orchard on our way home.
There’s really so much more I could say about this song – the choices we make, the pull of family expectations, the light and dark, the influences of traditional folk and children’s songs on some of my lyrical choices, and a memory of a religious map I once saw of the two paths in life. But, I’ll close for now and save some thoughts for another letter.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this song. Thank you for listening and thank you for supporting my New Song Club by being a paid subscriber. I’ve used footnotes in this letter to direct you to other songs of mine which add more pictures to the song album of my Appalachian family. Most are on Spotify or iTunes. All of them can be purchased or heard in my shop as well.
Love,
Jeni
Damson and Peach Sleepy lady slipper, down by the creek. I’ll find the yellow. You find the pink. All for mother – a Mother’s Day bouquet. All for mother, we came this way. I follow you and you follow me. I’ll not give in and you won’t be beat. You are my sister. There’s nothing to say, but all for my sister, I came this way. Damson and plum, cherry and peach, apple and pear, all on the trees outside our cabin door, just within our reach. You chose the damson. I chose the peach. I like the teaberry – you like the leaf – where the laurel grows and the bloodroot sleeps. A tisket, a tasket, it’s your birthday. All for your basket, I came this way. When Jesus calls us to orchards fair, we’ll meet again – see mother there. All for mother, we learned to pray. All for mother, we came this way. (Key of C with C, F, G, and Am chords) © Jeni Hankins, 2024
Ladyslippers are actually a type of orchid and it turns out that they are now endangered. So, they aren’t meant to be picked.
I sing about wash day in my song for Aunt Laura “Seventeen of My Own” and I talk about its importance in family lore in my essay about my great aunts.
You can hear a song about my Aunt Katherine and the dream my grandmother had about her the night Katherine passed away.
My Aunt Edith passed away on the fourth anniversary of my Dad’s death. I wrote a song about her riding a rodeo on a meteor through Heaven which you can listen to here.
Aunt Erma witnessed my great-great-grandfather John Rufus Smith’s murder. I’ve written their song here.
Our family cabin fell down sometime during the pandemic. It was one of the touchstone’s of my songwriting journey. I’m glad that my sister was with me when I found it in pieces.
Lovely, Jeni.
P.S.- I have not before heard of Damson so looked it up. Learned something old yet new-to-me. :)
🧡🧡