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Ozark folk songs' collector

It was a lucky day for Arkansas when Mary Parler came to the University of Arkansas in 1948. Hired by the English Department to teach courses on Chaucer, she was soon teaching a popular Arkansas folklore class.

Much of her considerable energy went into field work, conducting interviews with and recording musical performances by Ozark residents. Over almost two decades, Parler amassed a collection of 4,000 audio tapes filled with original music, interviews, folk tales, and much more. After her death in 1981, the collection eventually made its way to the University of Arkansas Special Collections Department. The University has now finished an arduous and time-consuming processing of the collection--and digitized it for free access through the Internet.

Born Oct. 6, 1904, in Wedgefield, S.C., Mary Celestia Parler was the daughter of a cotton farmer and country physician, Marvin L. Parler, and teacher Josie Platt Parler. She was educated in the local Wedgefield schools until the 10th grade when she was admitted to Winthrop College in Rock Hill, S.C. Taking a bachelor of arts degree in English in 1924, Mary went on to graduate study at the University of Wisconsin, where she studied Chaucer, a lifelong interest. Mary also pursued a doctoral degree at Wisconsin with a specialty in Southern dialects.

In 1948 Parler came to the University of Arkansas, where she began teaching Chaucer and folklore in the English Department. When queried about the diverse nature of her teaching subjects, she replied that "it is perhaps in exploring the intricacies of human behavior that Chaucer and Arkansas folklore are relatable," concluding that "there's a good deal of folklore in Chaucer."

Parler wasted no time. Within a year of her arrival, she was teaching a course in Arkansas folklore, and she established and directed the UA Folklore Research Project. She was a popular teacher, and her folklore course attracted bright students. Each student was expected to conduct field work and make a report to the class. The Parler Papers at the University of Arkansas Libraries contain 21 volumes of data collected by her students on topics such as riddles, jokes, proverbs, and religious beliefs.

While Parler's work in the classroom is fondly recalled by her students, her primary legacy is the gigantic Ozark Folksong Collection. With the help of field assistant Merlin Mitchell, Parler traveled across the region with a tape recorder the size of a suitcase, interviewing and recording musical performers. While much of the music is today known as folk music, Parler occasionally turned her microphone on such groups as a Cherokee choir singing Baptist hymns in the Cherokee language or immigrants performing in their native languages.

Folklorist and Parler biographer Rachel Reynolds has noted that Parler's collection totals 3,600 recordings of folk songs, 800 oral histories, and more than 700 comments and tales from performers. It amounted to 442 reels totaling 137,400 feet of audio tape. It is the largest collection of Ozark folk music in existence.

Though an unassuming person who mostly worked behind the scenes, in 1954 Parler became the subject of a CBS television program called The Search. The show revolved around a staged search for an ancient Elizabethan ballad, "The Two Sisters." Viewers are treated to Miss Parler traveling about the Ozarks in a Jeep as she stops at isolated cabins and visits with one overall-clad performer after another. Finally, they come across a party in Yocum, Carroll County, where a young girl named Mary Jo Davis sang the ancient song while leaning against a tree.

While Parler was an astonishingly prolific and accomplished folklorist, she was overshadowed by her husband, Vance Randolph. She met Randolph soon after arriving at the University when she helped organize the Arkansas Folklore Society in 1950, and they took a liking to each other from the start. Being from a respectable South Carolina family did not prevent Parler from flirting with Randolph.

Vance Randolph liked women, and he could certainly hold his own in a flirting match. However, these were two middle-aged people who were married to their work--and their courtship moved along slowly. They worked together closely on a number of Randolph's books, starting with his dialect book Down in the Holler (published in 1953). The couple married in 1962 when Parler was 58 and Randolph 70.

Parler published her only book, Arkansas Ballet Book, on Arkansas ballads, in 1963. She retired in 1975 and died in 1981, less than a year after the death of her husband.

Lora Lennertz, the UA Library's director for academic and research services, coordinated the effort to preserve and digitize the tapes. The University is expected to formally debut the Collection in August, but it can be accessed now at http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdu/landingpage/collection/OzarkFolkSong.

Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com. An earlier version of this column appeared April 17, 2011.

Editorial on 06/28/2015

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