Jane Hicks Gentry (December 18, 1863 – May 25, 1925) was an Appalachian folklorist and singer, born in
Watauga County, North Carolina
Watauga County ( ) from the North Carolina Collection's website at the . 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.
Background
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. The paternal Hicks lineage were emigrants from England who arrived in America prior to the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. 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
A spring creek is a type of free flowing river whose name derives from its origin: an underground spring or set of springs which produces sufficient water to consistently feed a unique river. The water flowing in a spring creek may additionally be ...
, 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. Jane had only a rudimentary education, but learned the basics of reading in order to facilitate her reading of the Bible.
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
A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...
. There they bought acreage on which they raised livestock and farm produce. The Gentry children were enrolled in the
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
-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.
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." The United States government turned Mountain Park Hotel at Hot Springs into a
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
prisoner-of-war internment camp for German sailors. Families of the prisoners lived in town, some at Jane's boarding house.
Appalachia
Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...
by American folklorist
Olive Dame Campbell
Olive Dame Campbell (1882–1954) was an American folklorist.
Biography
Olive Dame Campbell was born Olive Arnold Dame in 1882 in Medford, Massachusetts. From a young age, education played an important role in her life, as her father was the head ...
in 1916 to seek out old songs and ballads, especially those that had travelled from the British Isles. 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.
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
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
, suggested that
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
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.
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. Author
Irving Bacheller
Addison Irving Bacheller (September 26, 1859 – February 24, 1950) was an American journalist and writer. He founded the first modern newspaper syndicate in the United States.
Birth and education
Born in Pierrepont, New York, 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
Greenwich (, ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast (Conne ...
. 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."
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
Sevier County ( ) is a county of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 98,380. Its county seat and largest city is Sevierville. Sevier County comprises the Sevierville, TN Micropolitan Statistical Area, which i ...
, 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.
Jane's daughter Maud Long later recorded some of the stories for the
Archive of American Folk Song The Archive of Folk Culture (originally named The Archive of American Folk Song) was established in 1928 as the first national collection of American folk music in the United States of America. It was initially part of the Music Division of the Libr ...
at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
.
Death
Newt Gentry died March 24, 1922.
Jane died in May 1925. Her obituary noted her knowledge of old English and Scottish folksongs.