{"id":4631,"date":"2014-01-04T22:52:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-05T03:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getitright.pmss.net\/?page_id=4631"},"modified":"2020-09-16T19:29:30","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T23:29:30","slug":"fiddler-john-lewis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?page_id=4631","title":{"rendered":"FIDDLER JOHN LEWIS"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pine Mountain Settlement School
\nSeries 22: Friends and Visitors Related to\u00a0Pine Mountain Settlement School<\/h5>\n

Fiddler\u00a0John Lewis<\/h2>\n
\"VI_34_1099f_mod\"<\/a>

Fiddler John Lewis with his New York fiddle. [VI_34_1099f_mod.jpg]<\/p><\/div>\n

Stories of Fiddler John Lewis\u00a0abound in the early letters of workers at the School. He and his wife, Louize, enjoyed the visits from the School workers and both were never short of a story, many of which were captured and recorded, as in this account by Ethel de Long,<\/a>\u00a0printed in the November 1920 issue of\u00a0Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School,<\/a><\/em>\u00a0Volume 1\u00a0Number 5.<\/p>\n

WE are fortunate in having as one of our nearest neighbors a delightful talker, a philosopher, and a fiddler all in one. What a gift of phrasing he has! When Mrs. Holton, then Miss [Celia] Cathcart<\/a>, began her solicitations for the road, he characterized her thus: \u201cShe\u2019s a long-minded woman; she can see way yander ahead of\u00a0her.\u201d Fully in sympathy with the road project, he said to her: \u201cWhy, yes, I\u2019ll help ye. I believe in the road. I allus have a leetle chinkapin money in my pocket, an\u2019 I hain\u2019t\u00a0no hog with hit, nuther; I\u2019ll give ye a nickel for it!\u201d It was as generous a nickel as was the widow\u2019s mite of Bible times. Our nurse was \u201ca diadem among them that follered carin\u2019 for the sick; she\u2019d take you when you were plumb disencouraged and hearten you up again.\u201d How many delightful ways he has of describing his wife\u2019s [Aunt Louize] health to an inquiring listener:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Fiddling

Fiddling John Lewis and his wife, Louize. [lave017.jpg]<\/p><\/div>\n

“Yes, she\u2019s hearty, but weakly\u00a0\u2014 a stout, well-built chunk of a heavy woman.\u201d Again, \u201cGaily as a buck!\u201d It is a fearful thing to be the opposite of a \u201cdiadem;\u201d you may be called \u201ca turn of a rogue,\u201d or a \u201chell-hound,\u201d or even a \u201chell-hag.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In his younger days he always had a fiddle, but for fifteen years he went without one. Now again he has his violin\u2014has been offered twenty dollars and fifty cents for it many times, but wouldn’t take fifty for it! He used to wrap it in an old kerchief of his wife\u2019s and come up to play for us, his favorite tune being the march Napoleon played \u201cwhen he led his troops over the Rocky Mountains,\u201d a close second being one that General Grant used to play when he led his forces against the enemy. It troubled the dear old fiddler that he had no case to protect his violin. \u201cI need to shade her from the a\u2019r. Did you ever hear a fiddle like this? Why, hit\u2019s the clearest, melodious’est, loudest-ringin\u2019est one that ever I heerd.\u201d And then followed his philosophy of music: \u201cI take my fiddle when things are botherin\u2019 me, maybe the financial matters of the world, an\u2019 I sit down, an\u2019 play me a tune, an\u2019 that leads to another, and, don\u2019t you know, I feel better. Or when the aggravations gethers round about me, or I get mad, I can set down an\u2019 play, an\u2019 pretty soon the aggravations is plumb driv\u2019 away. But I want a case for her.\u201d An order went to New York for a fiddle case for our fiddler, but the order was arrested, and back came a case that Signor Adolf Betti of the Flonzaley Quartet* had no use for any more, along with a delightful note that the great violinist hoped to come down and play with our fiddler some day. \u201cDon\u2019t you know, hit\u2019s a sight how much better she rings since I got her that case,\u201d says he. \u201cI\u2019d never take nothin\u2019 for hit; hit belonged to the boss-fiddler of the world!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Our neighbor can do justice himself to the power of music, but for a long time he has wanted to find some one to write an adequate book on the theme, \u201cThe Power of Steam and the Mind of Man.\u201d For these great forces he felt he had neither knowledge nor language. Many and many a time has he come and given us all the illustrations he knew of both these themes. But his quest for a book-writer has been as vain as that of Diogenes for his honest man. Now the pleading always ends this way:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGet me somebody to write a poem that\u00a0I can make a tune to, an\u2019 then make him\u00a0write a book, an\u2019 when hit\u2019s printed, why\u00a0I\u2019ll\u2014I\u2019ll buy one!\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, Sally Loomis<\/strong>, a teacher, fresh from Wellesley College, who came to teach at Little Laurel school did write a poem that reads like a ballad. It is a narrative about Aunt Louize and Fiddler John that has all the drama, fatalism, and sorrowful endings found in the best of the mountain ballads. (See: Sarah Marcia (“Sally”) Loomis<\/a> biography.)<\/p>\n

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GALLERY – Fiddler John Lewis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\t