Eileen “Grandma” Jones

I called her Ma. My siblings preferred Mom. All our own kids and later our grandkids called her Grandma Jones. I’ve been told she was called Grandma Jones by many folks, young and old, here in McLean, Illinois, which in the last few decades of her wonder life became her own adopted hometown, a community of good, caring people she deeply loved.

She had such a strong sense of community, love and sharing with the many friends she made here that she refused to leave her home, even during the past several months when we thought her welfare might be best served elsewhere. We even offered to open our own homes to her, but she insisted that her tiny home in this community was where she wanted to be. She would have it no other way.

To me, my brother and my sisters, Ma’s life was a song. At the least, her 87-year-journey through her earthly home could be measured in song. She loved music, especially the simple country melodies she heard in her childhood, and the old-time hymns she learned from her own mother and the songs of praise that stuck with her like glue from her early days in church.

Those simple melodies often sang the praises of an equally simple life with few luxuries. Little wonder that this was our mother’s chosen music. She, herself, was the stripped-down model of simplicity.

Ma came into this world on Feb. 26 in humble surroundings. She was born in a farm house on the rich prairie soil north of Hopedale, Illinois. Her dad was a hard-working farm hand. The house of my mother’s birth was part of his wages.

Her mom, our beloved Grandma Gant, fit the bill of the farm hand’s wife in those days when the living was as hard as the black dirt could get when it was parched by a hot summer sun. Grandma Gant’s life was one of intense labor with simple but ample rewards of raising and feeding a family, doing what was necessary to raise a large family on a farm hand’s meager wages. Grandma Gant’s life served as the model of our own mom’s life.

The year Ma was born was also the year Wall Street collapsed, which started The Great Depression. Our mother was very much a child of that era, an FDR Democrat all her life, who reminded us often of the hardships of those days, especially if we dared complain about our own simplistic lifestyle as we grew up.

Our friends at school would talk about their shiny new bicycles. I myself learned to ride a hand-me-down, rusty bicycle that had no seat. (Later, when I got a bike that had a seat, I had to learn how to ride all over again.)

Our schoolmates would talk about the television programs they watched . Our family, instead, listened to the radio, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when the WLS Barn Dance from Chicago, or the far-away Grand Ole Opry from Nashville, Tennessee, would magically come drifting into our house over the airwaves.

Ma would often sing along with those radio performers, especially when her hero, Roy Acuff, would appear on the Opry. We, too, would soon learn the words to the songs and Saturday nights would turn into sing-a-longs, long before Mitch Miller became an American buzz-word.

Here’s something that may surprise you who came to know our mother only in her later years. She could play guitar. She owned one of those five-dollar Gene Autry guitars that came from the Sears catalogue. She bought it as a teenager, back when five bucks was something to be found only at the end of a rainbow.

I remember so vividly the summer nights we would gather around in the backyard as Ma would strum her guitar and lead us kids in singing the songs she loved. Carter Family tunes. Ballads about some tragic romance. Funny songs from the Appalachian Hills. And yes, the old Gospel songs. It was where I first learned “I’ll Fly Away,” an old hymn that remains a favorite of our family.

Sad songs also emerged from our mother’s simple life. Her first step into motherhood ended in tragedy with the infant’s death shortly after birth. Later, she would endure much pain as she watched her first husband — the father of three of her four children — suffer and eventually die from a heart ailment that in those days had no cure. We all vividly remember the horrible struggle of her living without a husband and us without a father, in the rural Hopedale countryside where we grew up. Later in life she remarried, a union that produced Ma’s fourth offspring. That marriage, too, would end with death’s sorrowful song.

But Ma endured through all her heartaches. With her simple, undying faith that always was a rock for us to lean on, she guided us through the hard times. In retrospect, there is no mistaking she knew this was her responsibility to shoulder, to keep us strong and always moving forward. After all, we, her children, were her treasures. We, in turn, gave her more treasurers with our spouses and then with her grandchildren, and now, great grandchildren. That’s all she ever wanted in life — someone to love — and the more there were to love, the better.

She never wanted anything for Christmas or her birthday — anything, that is, except having our family together to share these special days. That was her constant song of joy, having her family with her. Today, our family gathers around her one more time, a final time — surely to mourn her tragic passing but also to celebrate her unique, wonderful life and the riches beyond she certainly has earned.

Our mom was indeed unique, especially in these modern times. She was a simple country woman with simple needs and joys. Never was she fazed by the worldly items that have come into our own lives. She departs this world with nothing in terms of wealth or riches. We, who came from her womb, are spared the possibility of bickering over our inheritance.

Instead, we are left with the most simple of things. Our inheritance is a wealth of untold memories and the strong lessons learned of morality, spirituality and yes, the value of simplicity. These lessons gives rise to songs of joy, melodies such as “I’ll Fly Away” that still run deep through my recollection of those warm summer nights of my childhood.

From all of us, thanks, Ma, for the riches, the lessons — I failed to mention the best food you could ever hope for — and, yes Ma, thanks for the songs.

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Flatrock, N.C. - Bluegrass will be mixed in with plenty of eclectic performers at the llth Flatrock (North Carolina) Music Festival on Sept. 28, 29 and 30.It’s held at Camp Ton-A-Wandah in Flat Rock.

Here’s the lineup:

The Waybacks

Friday Main Stage
3:30 p.m. - FreeGrass
4:45 -Blue Mother Tupelo
6:15 - Ginn Sisters
7:45 - Randall Bramblett Band
9:40 - Waybacks
Midnight — (In the Gym) Barefoot Manner

Friday Lil’ Rec
3 p.m. - Dylan Gilbert
5 - Randall Bramblett and Mike Hines Acoustic
6 - Waybacks - James and Warren - Hot Talkin’ and Slow Pickin’
7 - Every Mother’s Dream
8:30 -Blue Mother Tupelo
10 -Ginn Sisters
Midnight — Anon Dixon Day’s Blues Cafe w/Special Guests

Friday Workshops -Linden Hall
4:45 p.m. - Eric Lovell “Give the Guitar Player a Break - Tips for Being a Good Sideman”
7:15- Gigi Dover “Finding your Voice - Where is It?”

Saturday Main Stage
10:30 a.m. - Sol Driven Train (kids show)
Noon - Ken Kiser - ‘06 Songwriter’s Contest Winner
1 p.m - Songwriter’s Showcase
3:15 -Divine MaGGees
5 - Every Mother’s Dream
6:45 - Rod Picott and The Stray Dogs
8:15 - Trailer Park Rangers
10:10 - Subdudes
Midnight - (In the Gym) Sol Driven Train

Downtown County Band

Saturday Lil’ Rec
9:30 a.m. Whippersnappers Family Band
10:30 - Downtown County Band
11:45 - Steve Simpson
1 p.m. - Candlewyck Duo
2:30 - Near Misses
4:30 - Subdudes - An all Acappella and Harmonies Set
5:45 - Trailer Park Rangers
7:00 - Mieka Pauley
8:30 - Open Mic w/ Top 3 Finalists

Saturday Workshops -Linden Hall
10 a.m. Mieka Pauley-”What is Stage Presence and How Can I Get Me Some?”
11:30 -Martin Anderson - “How to Not Bother the Program Manager and Still Get Your Songs on the Air”
1 p.m. Whippersnappers - “Creating a Family Band OR “You will play the guitar and you will like it’”
2:15 -Dave Hamilton - Kid’s Theremin and Percussion Workshop
3:45-Rod Picott & Joe Kuhlman - “How to Make a Great CD: Great Songs, Beautiful Sounds and Lots of Sales”
6 -Near Misses - “Harmonies: Who’s Note Is It Anyway?”

Sunday Main Stage
10 a.m. Chapel (Near Misses at the Chapel in the Woods)
11- 17 South
12:30 p.m.- Near Misses
2 p.m. Mieka Pauley
3:45 - Ras Alan and the Lions

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The 15th annual Poppy Mountain Bluegrass Festival, with a lengthy list of performers, will be held Sept. 11-15 on 1,000 acres of the rolling eastern Kentucky countryside.Although concerts won’t start until Sept. 11, campers can start arriving on the grounds on Sept. 1.

The Grascals

Performers include:

Sept. 11: Jack Lewis, Sage Knoll, Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass, Bobby Hutch, The Hillbilly Gypsies

Sept. 12: Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass, Bobby Macky, The James King Band

Sept 13: Katie Penn, The Chapmans, Billie Renee & Cumberland Gap, Michael Cleveland & The Flamekeeper featuring Audie Blaylock, Melvin Goins & Windy Mountain, Ronnie Reno, Erie Bradley & Grassy Ridge, The Hillybilly Gypsies

Sept 14: Ralph Stanley II, Melvin Goins, Randy Waller & the Country Gentlemen, Ronnie Reno, Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, The Grascal’s, Mountain Heart, Special Guest Joe Diffie, Newfound Road

Sept. 15: Dr. Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, Sammy Shelor & the Lonesome River Band, Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, Hit & Run, The Chapmans, John Conlee

Emcees will be Sam Jackson and Melvin Goins.

Contacts for the Poppy Mountain festival are:

PO Box 667, Urbana, OH 43078

Office Phone 606-784-2277

Campground Phone (606)780-4192

Web site: http://www.poppymountainbluegrass.com

Email: poppymtn@yahoo.com

Poppy Mountain is located off Interstate 64 in Eastern Kentucky. Direction information can be found on the Web site.

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Larry Stephenson

The Horseshoe Bend Bluegrass Festival runs Sept. 7 and 8 on the banks of the James River in historic Scottsville, Va.

On Friday’s playbill are Charles Frazier & the Virginia Ramblers, The Larry Stephenson Band, the Bluegrass Brothers, Eddie & Martha Adcock with Tom Gray and Larry Sparks & the Lonesome Ramblers.

Saturday’s lineup includes IIIrd Tyme Out, the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys, Dark Hollow, Dave Evans and River Bend, the Bluegrass Brothers, Eddie & Martha Adcock and the Country Gentlemen Reunion Band with Randy Waller.

Tickets can be reserved by e-mail at tickets@horseshoebendbluegrass.com or by calling (434)286-4887.
Prices and other information are available at http://www.horseshoebendbluegrass.com

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Carrie Hassler and Hard Rain

Live Oak, FL - Don Miller and Just Right Productions have announced details for the 2008 Spirit of Bluegrass Music Fest scheduled for Thursday, March 20 - Saturday, March 22, 2008 at The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida. Returning to the Main Stage next year will be the Lonesome River Band and the 2007 International Bluegrass Music Association’s Emerging Artist of the Year Nominee, Cadillac Sky. Main Stage performers also include, Mountain Heart, Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain, Honi Deaton & Dream, Grasstowne, Southern Lite, The Wilson Family and more to be announced at a later date.The Spirit Stage will again offer festival goers an opportunity to get up-close and personal with the music as well as the artists in an enhanced workshop experience. Mark Brinkman will present his “Monroe Out of the Box” mandolin instructional Workshop that will give pickers an insight into the notes and tones used by Bill Monroe…. and how to achieve them on your mandolin. Songwriters are featured in the Workshop Tent along with great local and regional talent. Some of these attendees have gone on to perform on the Main Stage at Spirit of the Bluegrass Fest.

Honi Deaton

Advanced 3-Day Ticket Packages are on sale now for $50 for Adults, $15 for ages 6-12 if purchased before 2/28/08 and are available at www.jrp3.com or by calling 1-866-752-5220.

Gate and Day passes are: Adults- $15 Thursday only, $25 Friday only, and $25 Saturday only; Children 6-12 are $10 per day. Children 5 and under free.

The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park offers many amenities including: RV and tent camping, cabin rental, stables, canoes, and much more. For camping and cabin reservations, please contact the park directly at (386) 364-1683 or www.musicliveshere.com. Attendees are encouraged to make their reservations soon to ensure park accommodations.

For more information on the 2008 Spirit of Bluegrass Music Fest including off-site lodging information, please visit www.jrp3.com. The event is sponsored by: Gibson Pure, Budweiser, Hope River Entertainment, Suwannee Log Homes, Inc., Roberts Land & Timber Investment Corp., and Subway Restaurants. Sponsorship opportunities are still available by calling 678.377.3298 or contact@hoperiverentertainment.com

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