re: #152 Barefoot Grin

Sorry, back to Little Women, but a couple of years ago I got hold of a booklet that one of my cousins did of letters (originals copied in color so we could see the shade of the paper) and transcriptions between my great-great grandfather and great-great grandmother that they exchanged while he was fighting for the Union at Chickamauga and she was trying to hold down the farm in western Illinois (there’s still a town there named after him). It was about half news and half instructions about who to go to if she needed to sell some cows or corn to get through a certain month. So many families led by women in times of war. The movie lets you know the cost without dwelling on it.

Ironically, a couple of my mother’s ancestors from Georgia also fought at Chickamauga on the Confederate side, but we don’t have any such letters as far as I know. Her mother was was from Lookout Mountain on the Georgia side.

A lot of the heartache of the Civil War still echoes down through the ages. And those who talk lightly about any war, or worse, new civil war do not understand what they are asking for.

Unfortunately, my favorite version is not on YouTube outside the paywall. If you have a music service and it has Grey DeLisle’s version of “O Willie We Have Missed You”, please make an effort to listen to it. She won a Grammy for it.

Barring that, here is a more traditional version:

Willie We Have Missed You

Willie We Have Missed You

As the song goes on, you will likely realize it is a song about a Civil War widow thinking she hears her husband’s footsteps at the gate.

The Grey DeLisle version comes from “Beautiful Dreamer - The songs of Stephen Foster” album which has a number of modern interpretations of his songs.