Pretty Saro
Vergie, Cas’ wife. She was 16 years younger than him.
Photograph copyright Rob Amberg 2020.
Photograph courtesy of the Photographer.
I’ve heard all kinds of stories from Mother since we started this project. You may be thinking that I should have been recording all of them and posting them for posterity…and the enjoyment of all. Well, although it IS kind of nice to have some of those memories all for myself, I luckily recorded one of the best which I will paraphrase here. I will post it soon, promise!
Cas Wallin was born in 1903, so when Cecil Sharp wandered though in 1916, Cas would have been a strapping lad of 13. I like to imagine that he wandered through during some of all that collecting that was going on. Mother said that his brothers Lee (b. 1889, m. Berzilla), Jeter (b. 1899) and Chappel (b. 1898) were all off at Tan Yard Gap, which was between Sodom and Hot Springs, logging the American Chestnuts out of what would become a part of Pisgah National Forest (established in 1916). Granny Dell (b.1898) and her sister Berzilla (b. 1894) also worked at the logging camp as washer women and dish washers. Cecil missed out on meeting a lot of prolific ballad singers because many locals were working off, fighting in World War I, or logging. Hot Springs was a days walk from home so most folks would stay at the camp while they were working. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at that camp. I’ll bet the music and songs flowed freely!
Cas came from a very musical family. So let’s start out with Hugh and Rosa (known to future generations as Granny Roz). They marry and have sons Mitch and Thomas Jefferson Wallin. Hugh died and Rosa then marries John Bullman, and they have a daughter Mary Bullman - later Sands - (b. 1872-1949) and Sonny Bullman. Mary’s half brother Thomas Jefferson Wallin goes on to have several children, including Robert Lee Wallin, Chappel Wallin, and Jeter Wallin and Cas Wallin. So Mary Sands was Cas’ aunt…his father’s half sister. Cool huh? They all loved music and a long running rumor within the family is that Mitch was one hell of a fiddle player. Of course they all sang in church and Cas eventually became a self taught choir director. How wonderful and rare that I get to know little details about people born over a hundred years ago. All of that kind of information really speaks to the cultural anthropologist in me and is further proof that no matter how much water goes under the bridge, humanity really hasn’t changed that much. It is sweet to think that one of the reasons that Lee and Berzilla fell in love was their common interest in all things ballads…or maybe she fell in love with the ballads because Lee and his family were such a musical bunch. Funnily enough, I found online somewhere that Sharp thought Mitch to be a poor singer and a worse fiddle player because he improvised too much to line out. LOL - I don’t think Mr. Sharp enjoyed a good old crooked tune and no accounting for taste!
Pretty Saro was one of Cas’ signature songs and I posted a video of him singing it on my ‘lyrics’ page. Mother says that she learned this song after Decoration at the picnic when she was 8-10 years old. Decoration Day is usually held on a Sunday in June. Our family holds ours on the first Sunday of June every single year and NO BODY has the excuse of not knowing we were all getting together. Decoration Day is an important Appalachian tradition where families gather at the graveyard to place fresh flowers on graves and honor the memory of passed loved ones. Even though the day is meant to commemorate the dead, spending time with family members (some traveling from far away) is also an important focus of this yearly reunion. After the service, everyone gets together for a big pot luck picnic with massive amounts of food, good conversation, and maybe even a little music/singing. The picnic after Decoration would be the perfect opportunity for an older member of the community to pass on an old love song to the next generation!
I want to give props on this song to my father-in-law Joe Penland. He also learned this song from Cas and I have heard him sing it at many a ballad swap!