Talk: Autobiography, Music at University

Collected by Ronald Scheuerman and Bob Edmisten for M.C. Parler Transcribed by Nathaniel Lucy Told by Stella Evans Huntsville, Arkansas December 20, 1959 Reel 323 Talk Ronald Scheuerman: That's real beautiful. Did your mother have one special song that she liked more than any others? Stella Evans: My mother, all her's were religious songs she liked well. Scheuerman: can you name one? Evans: Oh yeah, but I don't know the words to them, you know. I remember the tune maybe or a verse to the song but I don't like to sing just one verse and stop, you know. Scheuerman: Well, I would like to hear a real old religious song. You know one that your mother. . . Evans: Yeah. Scheuerman: I mean there are people, seems like they always pick out something that's a favorite. Evans: Well, you I just remember one verse. I lost the book some years when I was a kid. And I lost the book and I just remember one verse and chorus from it. And the first one, I know the first song I ever played when I took . . . when I played I took lessons. I took lessons my whole life when I was young, you know. And I can play every one. I don't, they don't erase my memory at all. They just come to me sometimes. I'll sit down here and play a tune just like when I was a kid. "Midnight Hour Waltz" is one of them. And I don't say to bolster anything but people who know me will tell you that my father's pretty well- to-do and I was only a child and I took lessons from the professor at the University of Arkansas for a long time. An old man he's grey bearded and . . . Scheuerman: Now when was this?Evans: Oh, way back in 19-some-aught. Way back in 18 and 90s somewhere. Way back then. Just back I suppose now when I was a little girl. Scheuerman: Well that was just about the same time the University was started, wasn't it? Evans: Yeah, he was a grey-headed man and he slapped my hand 'cause I missed a chord. You know and I can't stand when . . . when I get mad. And I said, "You're an old man" and I've been raised to not talk mean to men but I said, "Next time you slap me, I going to slap your jaw so hard I'll . . ." And so he never did do it no more but I told dad, I said, "You've got to fire him" and Daddy went and fired him. I was the only girl you see but then it did make me sore for slapping my hand and he said that wasn't right. He showed me but he I reckon was just . . . Scheuerman: That sure hurts when someone slaps your hand. Evans: You betcha. I'm part Cherokee Indian. When I'm mad, I'm mad. My grandmother and grandfather were Cherokee Indians, on my mother's side. Scheuerman: I would like to hear that religious song that you just know a verse and chorus to if you don't mind. Evans: Well, Let's see. Now . . . I told you this morning when you got up here. You was reading I guess you were paying no attention. Unknown Woman: (talks in the background) Evans: Well now, it's, well I don't like to just sing a verse and chorus but that's all I remember of it. There was three verses to it.Funding for digitization provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Happy Hollow Foundation