ALAN writes:

Thank you for your thoughtful essay on mountain hiking and family togetherness.

There is much to be said in favor of the simple act of walking.  (Read the anthology The Magic of Walking, 1967.)  Walking is conducive to thinking, which is one reason why most people don’t like to walk.  Of course Fast Folk hate the very thought.  I have always enjoyed both, which is one reason why I am such a terrible misfit in today’s world.

It is not directly pertinent to what you wrote, but your essay reminded me of a story-song that I am sure is unknown to you and your readers.

On AM radio in the summer of 1962, there was a popular song called “Wolverton Mountain.”  It was sung by Claude King and was the story of a man who wanted to marry the daughter of a gun-toting mountain man.  I had the 45-rpm record on the red Columbia Records label and my boyhood pal Jeff and I often sat on the floor that summer with a record player and sang along with that record.   

We got a kick out of some lines in the lyric, such as “…Her tender lips are sweeter than honey…”  That was the line, but that was not how Claude King sang it.  He sang it:  “Her tender lips are sweeter than hawwnee…”  The way he sang “hawwnee” instead of “honey” knocked us for a loop.  We got a kick out of that and mimicked it when we sang along with it.

Of course we were 12 years old at that time and knew nothing about anything.  It never occurred to me for a moment that there really was a place called “Wolverton Mountain” and that the man named in the song really did live there.

Woolverton Mountain (the correct spelling) is in north-central Arkansas.  Merle Kilgore wrote the song in 1959 about his uncle Clifton Clowers.  But unlike in the song, his uncle was not a gun-toting, mean-tempered mountain man; he was a gentle man, happily-married, and well-liked.  He was a World War I veteran.  It is said that he could be seen working in his fields with a horse and a plow even in his later years.  He lived 102 years.

Thirty-eight years after he wrote it, composer Merle Kilgore sang it and talked about it in a program filmed in Nashville in 1997.  He died eight years later.  But his song is not forgotten.

Just a few weeks ago I discovered a photograph that appeared on Facebook in January 2014 under the heading “Then There Was Arkansas.”  The photograph is said to show the farmer Clifton Clowers, the subject of the song, at work in a field late in his life.

The entry generated comments from many people who remembered Claude King’s 1962 recording or had actually known or met Mr. Clowers, the Arkansas farmer immortalized in the song his nephew Merle Kilgore had written for him in 1959.

“I grew up on Woolverton Mountain,” one woman wrote.  “It was a nice, quiet place, very family-oriented.”

“I am his grand daughter,” another woman wrote.  “My dad was his 4th child. Until his death I spent every Thanksgiving of my life with he & my grandmother on Woolverton mountain.  He was one of the most gentle men that ever lived.  My husband re-wrote the song as a Christian version & sang it at his funeral.”

“Clifton Clowers was my daddy’s uncle,” another woman wrote.  “We grew up going to decoration at the cemetery on Woolverton Mountain every spring.  I remember meeting Clifton when I was little.  He was sitting on his front porch with family all around.  At the time we gave little thought to the fame factor.”

“My dad was his mailman,” another woman wrote.  “He would give daddy vegetables from his garden…  Daddy taught me and my sisters to sing the song and would have us sing it for friends and neighbors.  I was about 6 years old at the time.  My dad took my two sons to visit his farm when they were little.  Lots of good memories.”

“I never met Mr. Clowers,” a man wrote, “but went by the road up to his place many times when I had my sawmill operation at Clinton [ Arkansas ].  Everyone said he was a nice old man.”

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