Students Create Historical Ballad of 91-year-old Town Resident

Click here to listen to song. (Note:  Not sure why the video widget that used to be here no longer shows the audio player. Help would be appreciated. Just let me know what I did wrong in comments below.)

BENSON, VT -- Eighth graders at Benson Village School in Vermont have finished a collaborative project with village elders, each other, a musician and the Young Writers Project to create an original historical ballad.

The effort took place over a series of weekly workshops in school; students continued their writing between workshops on a special Web site created for the project where students wrote, commented on each other's ideas, listened to recordings of the elders' stories and listened to other ballads.

On Wednesday, May 27, before a packed gymnasium at the small Vermont school, musician Pete Sutherland and the students performed their ballad. A featured guest was the subject of the ballad -- 91-year-old Marion Munger who had no idea she was the subject of the final ballad. Her relatives had tricked her into coming to the school. "I was so surprised," she said, adding with her customary wry smile: "I'm glad I came."

This was the second ballad created by the collaboration between students, Sutherland and the Young Writers project, a Vermont-based nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging kids to write and finding them audience. Fourth grade students at Swanton School created the ballad "From a Bird's Eye View" which has been performed several times. To learn more about the project and hear other versions of the ballads and some of the storytelling by the elders, go to: ballad.ywpvt.net

More details

The project began with students meeting and talking to several elders in the community, who were asked to tell stories about their experiences on Lake Champlain. (The concept of the project was to create a historical ballad that focused on the Lake; YWP received a grant to work with the two schools from the Lake Champlain Basin Program.)YWP recorded the interviews and storytelling to post online. Sutherland led discussions with the students about what they found most intriguing and memorable.

The stories of Marion "Mimi" Munger seemed to be most appealing to the students. She told of her childhoold living on the edge of Lake Champlain in Benson Landing which is at the southern and most narrow portion of Lake Champlain.  Her family ran a ferry to the other side -- New York State -- and back and her Mom did the daily mail run picking up mail at a nearby train station. Mimi and her sister Frieda went to school in New York, on the other side of the lake because it was easier than going into town. In the winter, they walked across the ice.

Students wrote about Mimi's stories. They were asked to create similies, or rhyming lines, or poems. They were asked to fill in gaps of information with imgained detail. Slowly, Sutherland got them to shape the concept of the stanzas; he would choose lines and put together a stanza and they'd then edit. He used the students' phrasing and sometimes Mimi's.

Sutherland, a remarkable musician specializing in traditional music, eventually introduced the musical themes and from there, the ballad came together.

The eighth graders were, at first, loathe to sing. But, eventually, they relented, in part because they saw the performance of the fourth graders of the other school that we worked with. Eighth graders were not going to be outdone by a bunch of fourth-graders!

The day of the performance the students practiced their song and went before the audience. They got a standing ovation and a few tears from Marion Munger.

The Rutland Herald wrote about the project on its Front Page and Vermont Public Radio had Sutherland sing some of the song on its Vermont Edition show and had a previous story on the project.

This comes from the Herald story:

"I think the real benefit was the collaboration, learning their work individually may have value, but they may have to take out some of their words to merge it with another student's work," teacher Mary Gunn said.

Students Amanda Doran, 14, and Shara James, 15, said they learned not only about songwriting but also about local history.

"I never knew about the ferries at the landing," she said. "I thought it was in the middle of nowhere and no one knew about it."

Both said they expected to try more ballad-writing on their own.

For more about the Young Writers Project, go to youngwritersproject.org

Below are the words:

MIMI'S SONG

     Oh my name is Marion Munger

     In Benson Landing I dwell

     Been living right here for 91 years

     And a story to you I can tell

 

We were crossing the lake to the school bus

We were pushing a boat on a sled

A boat past its prime full of books and supplies

How we wished we were back home in bed

For the shoreline just seemed to get further

Our noses ran hard from the cold

The ice was as thin as a page in a book

We wondered how long it would hold

"Hey Sis, we better get moving 

Just hear that old ice boom and crack

It sounds like a shot from a cannon

Well, maybe the redcoats are back!"

It was going to high school the hard way

There was no other way we could go

But we always did manage to get there

On those winter days so long ago  

 

 

     Oh my name is Marion Munger

     In Benson Landing I dwell

     Been living right here for 91 years

     And a story to you I can tell

 

 

My mother was rowing the ferry

The crossing was easy and fast

Just like my grandfather had taught her

And that's how our summer days passed

Til one afternoon on the fall pole

I jumped, and what do you think?

My sister went flying out over the rail

A splash, and down she did sink

"Freda fell into the water!"

"Where?" cried my mother, "oh, where?

"Under the boat!" - then we looked again

And there we could see it - her hair!

My mother dove in to retrieve her

A doctor onboard brought her 'round

She never was fond of the water

Since the day that she nearly was drowned

 

     Oh my name is Marion Munger

     In Benson Landing I dwell

     Been living right here for 91 years

     And a story to you I can tell 

 

A man drove onto our ferry

When suddenly he realized

He didn't know which pedal was which

He was in for a big surprise

His Model T went for the water

When his foot thought the gas was the brake

And soon he'd provided a new mobile home

For the catfish down there in the lake

Somebody dove in to help him

While others stood helplessly by

In a moment he rose to the surface

"I forgot how to stop it," he cried

"Get a horse," an old-timer suggested

"Get two - or better yet four!"

They hitched up a team to the bumper

And that's how the car came ashore

 

     Oh my name is Marion Munger

     In Benson Landing I dwell

     Been living right here for 91 years

     And a story to you I can tell 

 

With a basket of backyard apples

Our rowboat approached the big yacht

We were going to see the governor

Til voices called out, "No, you're not!"

Four handsome young sailors with orders

They stood looking down at our crew

My sister and I and two boys from nearby

It seemed our adventure was through

Then the governor's wife came a-running

Crying, "Don't chase the children away!"

The sailors they hauled up our basket

Not too glad, but they had to obey

Hard telling the fate of those apples

But we had a very nice chat

With a lady named Eleanor Roosevelt  

In Benson  - imagine that!

 

     Oh my name is Marion Munger

     In Benson Landing I dwell

     Been living right here for 91 years

     And a story to you I can tell