Christmas Songs from Victorian America

by Kathryn Albright

    

 Christmas songs ~ both contemporary and traditional ~ speak to my heart. I wanted to share six Christmas songs that were written in the "Sweet Americana Sweetheart era," the time between 1820 and 1920. 

Before the 1800's, Christmas carols came to us in two different ways. They would be classical chorales or church music first. Then, sometimes years (even centuries!) later, words would be fitted to the music.Many traditional songs such as What Child is This? and The First Noel come to us in this manner. Or, it could happen the other way around. A well-loved poem would later have music added to it. (As with The Star Spangled Banner.)

In the late 1800's the production of pianos became affordable to middle class families and Tin Pan Alley and sheet music hit the American scene.
 

    

Here are six favorites from the years 1820-1920…

    
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing ~ The tune composed in 1840 by Felix Mendelssohn, the lyrics came from a hymn written in 1739 by Charles Wesley.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear ~ was a poem by Edmund Sears in Massachusetts, first published in a church magazine 1849. It was adapted to music a year later by Richard S. Willis.

Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem ~ Written by Phillip Brooks, a well-known preacher in Philadelphia 1868. Lewis Redner set the words to music for the church’s children’s choir that he managed.

We Three Kings of Orient Are ~ 1857 in New York City by John Hopkins, Jr.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day ~ A poem entitle Christmas Bells written in 1861 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and set to music in the 1870s by John Baptiste Calkin. In 1940 the poem was set to new music by Johnny Marks and that is how we know it today.

Away in a Manger ~ Published 1887 in a collection called Dainty Songs for Lads and Lasses. The lyrics came from a poem in a children’s Sunday School book published several years earlier in Philadelphia. 

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Of these songs, I think the most poignant story behind the song is with Longfellow’s Christmas Bells poem. His wife had died in a house fire in 1861 and he was in the grip of depression. Also that year, 1861, the Civil War had begun. His oldest son enlisted and left for the war in 1863. (He was severely injured and returned home.) It was on Christmas Day of 1863 that Longfellow wrote the poem of a hope that prevails as long as there is Christmas and the promise of new life.

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What is your favorite Christmas carol or song? Comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff.

 Gemma Starling travels two thousand miles from her former life to flee a crime she committed. As the new schoolteacher in Clear Springs, she tries to blend in, but the new sheriff is not so easily deceived.  

When her life is threatened, he realizes that his personal feelings for her have far surpassed his professional responsibilities for the case. He can’t lose her…yet does he even know who she truly is?

Happy Holidays!

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Blog Tour Tuesday ~ Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff

I am so excited to finally...FINALLY...be able to announce 

my newest release here at Sweet Americana Sweethearts! 

Just in time for Christmas!

Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff 

by Kathryn Albright

This is the story of Gemma Starling, a woman running from her past. Gemma travels two thousand miles form her former life to flee the crime she committed. As the new schoolteacher in Clear Springs, she tries to blend in, but the sheriff in town is not so easily deceived. Gemma's attempts to avoid Craig Parker only intrigue him more. When her life is threatened, he realizes that his personal feelings for her have far surpassed his professional responsibilities for the case. He cannot lose her...yet does he even know who she truly is?

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"I loved this western romance. Ms. Albright provided us with old fashioned romance, a mystery, and Christmas --all of my favorite things."

Teri Donaldson - Amazon Reviewer

EXCERPT:

    He breathed hard trying to catch his breath while looking back and listening to make sure they weren’t being followed. With any luck on their side, the cougar had been protecting its kill. When they left it would have settled down to eat. He turned back to attend to Miss Starling. “I think we’re oka—”

   She gripped his vest hard, and tucked her face into his chest, breathing hard. Her small shoulders shook.

   Surprised by the sudden change in her, he didn't know what to do at first. "It's okay, Gemma." He looked down on the straight part in her brown hair. Her hat had fallen off during her wild ride and how hug by its ribbons on her back. "We're safe. You're fine."

   Her breaths came in disjointed gasps.

   He didn't know what the heck to do with his arms, flummoxed as he was by her sudden move to cling to him.

   "Is it gone?"

   "I think so." Her hair know was half out of its coil and falling down her back. He breathed in her jasmine scent. What had happened to Miss 'I can do it myself'? He was beginning to realize there was a lot more to Miss Starling than she cared to admit.

   "Wha...what happened?" She spoke into his chest, her breaths still coming in gasps.

   "Not sure. Probably the cat was being protective of its kill."

   "Are we safe?"

   "Yeah." He said it, but he wasn't all that sure. He listened for the big cat, which was foolish since cougars hunted quieter than any other large animal. It would be on them before they knew it wanted them.

   Finally, he slipped his arms around her shoulders and simply held her. It was awkward at first. He felt stiff. She hadn't wanted to close the gap to call him Craig, but here she was in his arms. He didn't know what to make of it. Then she shifted on her saddle, moving closer. He tightened his hold. "Take a big breath and let it out slow."

   She did as he said, her breathing still unsteady, her body still shaking. She was a tiny thing. The only other woman he'd held in his arms was Charlotte who was a good five inches taller than Miss Starling. Bigger frame too. Feeling Miss Starling's shoulders heave with every small gasp made him want to hold her tighter and ease her fear. He brushed the tendrils of hair off her cheek. Her skin felt even smoother than it looked. His fingertips tingled and the urge to repeat his stroke tugged at him.

   After a while, her breath evened out. She pushed away from him, breaking the moment of comfort. "I'm all right now."

   He studied her, liking the way she looked all disheveled with her cheeks flushed and her brown eyes soft and self-conscious.

   She pushed a hairpin back into place.

   He snorted softly. "Don't think that'll do it."

   Her cheeks pinked up.

   She was embarrassed. He found it rather fetching.

   "If I may just take a moment..." She then proceeded to comb out her hair with her fingers.

   The sight of all that rich brown hair flowing loose, the sunlight glinting on it, did odd things to his gut. This was a most intimate part of her day and he was suddenly privy to it. He would have liked to reach out and stop her. He would have liked to do the combing with his own fingers and touch those silky waves. Instead, he gripped his reins tight and simply stared, fascinated.

   She rewound the thick strand with a practiced hand and coiled it again upon her head. She repinned it and then set her hat just so to cover the slightly mussed-up appearance of her hair knot. Her gaze skittered to his as she tied the ribbons under her chin. "I hope my horse was running the right way."

   It took him a moment to pull out of the spell she'd cast over him. He pointed with his chin to the small cross-section of road ahead of them. "Smart horse. Knows the way home."

Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff
Copyright 2016 by Kathryn Albright
Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A.

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BIO:

Kathryn Albright writes sweet historical romance. Her stories celebrate courage and hope with a dash of adventure. Kathryn's stories have been finalists in the distinguished RWA Golden Heart and the HOLT Medallion as well as several other industry contests. She enjoys hiking, long road trips with her husband and being caught up in a great story. She lives with her family in the rural Midwest.

Kathryn's Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads

THANK YOU VETERANS!

The authors here at Sweet Americana Sweethearts write stories set between 1820 and 1920, so it is appropriate that I mention the start of Veterans Day in 1919--one year after the Armistice of World War I.

FACTS ~  Veteran's Day

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 was the official signing of the cease-fire of World War I (also known as the Great War; the War to end all Wars.)

1919:   One year later, Armistice Day was celebrated to commemorate that day.

1926:   Congress passed a resolution that Armistice Day would be an annual observance.

1938:   Armistice Day was made a National Holiday.

1954:   Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name to Veterans Day.

Other countries that commemorate their veterans annually are Britain, France, Australia and Canada. (On a different day than the USA.) In the Commonwealth countries, two minutes of silence are observed at 11a.m. on November 11th is observed.

There are approximately 23 million military veterans in the United States today.

I come from a family of veterans. I'm a daughter of a Navy Flyboy. My grandfather served in World War I and my great great grandfather in the War Between the States. My brothers and my two sons all served in the military. So it is unfathomable for me to consider letting this day go by without saying a huge THANK YOU to all the veterans out there.

And while I'm at it, I'd like to say THANK YOU to those who do their best to keep the people in this country safe -- our police and firefighters as well as our veterans who are currently in the military.

I appreciate you!

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I love patriotic songs and I'll leave you with one of my all-time favorites... What is your favorite patriotic song?

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God Bless the USA

by Lee Greenwood

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I'd worked for all my life
And I had to start again
With just my children and my wife

I'd thank my lucky stars

To be living here today

Cause the flag still stands for freedom

And they can't take that away

And I'm proud to be an American

Where at least I know I'm free

And I won't forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me

And I'll gladly stand up

Next to you and defend her still today

Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land

God bless the USA

From the lakes of Minnesota

To the hills of Tennesee

Across the plains of Texas

From sea to shining sea

From Detroit down to Houston,

And New York to L.A.

Well there's pride in every American heart

And its time we stand and say

And I'm proud to be an American

Where at least I know I'm free

And I won't forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me

And I'll gladly stand up

Next to you and defend her still today

Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land

God bless the USA

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For information on my sweet historical westerns please see

www.KathrynAlbright.com

The Three R's ~ 19th Century Schools

Prior to the Civil War, schoolteachers were mostly men because the prevailing belief was that women could not maintain discipline in the classroom. When the men left for the war, women moved in and filled positions at 60% less salary. When the men returned, they refused to work at the reduced wages even through they did make more than the women teachers, and most left the profession.

Women teachers were required to be single. They could "sit" for their teaching certificate as long as they had graduated from school. Some were as young as fifteen. If they married, they had to give up their job. They were not allowed to attend public performances or dances. Male teachers were permitted to date one night a week or two if they attended church regularly. Because women were so few in number compared to men in the West, the turn-over rate for teachers was fairly high as women married and started their own families.

Children from the age of five would go to school daily through the week and then on weekends would be expected to come back and help clean the schoolhouse. A teacher might have anywhere from three to forty-five students in the first the first through the eighth grade. Usually girls would sit on one side of the room and boys on the other, with an aisle down the middle.

Discipline could be difficult at times, especially when some of the older boys towered over the teacher. Infractions were dealt with swiftly and often severely. Corporal punishment with hickory switches and rulers was not unusual. The picture of a pupil sitting on a chair in the corner with a dunce cap on was a form of punishment used for a child that hadn't done his lessons or who spoke out of turn (or a similar minor offense.)

The typical school house was a one-room building. A male teacher and his family often lived in a home next door or attached to the school house--teacherage. Women teachers would be housed with one of the families whose children attended the school so that they could be supervised. (Now that would make it hard to "leave your day job" at the end of the day!)

Teachers had to be creative and work with whatever supplies they had. They used memorization, reciting, and oral testing to teach reading, spelling, arithmetic, and history. For many years, the main textbookwas the McGuffey Reader. A staggering amount, approximately 120 million copies of the readers were sold between 1836 and1960. Many parents could not afford textbooks and so they sent their children to school with any book from home--usually the Bible--for instructions in reading. Eliza Mott was a teacher who taught the alphabet using the inscriptions on tombstones!

In doing research about the school in Clear Springs where Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff is set, I learned that the main difficulty for the teacher there was staying single in a town that was predominantly men who worked in the goldmines or on the nearby ranches. School teachers would usually only last a year at most before they married.

Influential people who have graduated from one-room schools:

• Abraham Lincoln (President)
• Herber Hoover (President)
• Joyce Carol Oates (Pulitzer Prize)
• Laura Ingalls Wilder (author) 
• My father.

My father and his brothers attended a one-room school house that was built on land his father donated for the school. It still stands (and is now a private home,) down a winding country road in central Illinois. It feels like steppeing back in time a hundred years when I go back for a visit. My grandparent's farmhouse is just around the corner--a country mile away...

One of my "old school" memories is that my Junior High School was situatied right up against the back of the San Diego Zoo next to the wallaby and kangaroo enclosures. When the tour bus would drive by loaded with people, the bus driver would often comment on the "animals" on the other side of the fence--meaning the children on the gym field. It was all in good-natured fun (I think...)

What about you? Do you have any unusual or fond memories of school?

For more information about my upcoming release

Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff

Please check out my website where I have an excerpt posted.

The book is now up on Amazon where it is available for pre-order at a reduced rate!

Cover Art

Yes! This is my new cover! I just received it from Harlequin for my soon-to-be released book and wanted to share it with you.

I thought I'd chat a bit about the process I go through to get my book cover. Unlike indie books where the author has some input about the cover, Harlequin has a marketing/art department that does that part of the book. They have a form that I fill out that asks about setting, hero, and heroine. They want to know things like~

1. Where my story takes place
2. Hero's hair length, hair color, eye color, style of clothes
3. Ditto for heroine.
4. Several scene suggestions from book that would make a good background for the cover.

For Christmas Kiss from the Sheriff, I used a very familiar setting to me that is near where I grew up and still frequently visit--the back country of San Diego County.

Out of the few scenes from the book that I suggested, they chose the hero and heroine's kiss :-) which happens outside of the town hall on the boardwalk.

I am always tickled to see how close the art department can come to matching my visualization of the story and they always amaze me with how close!

Here are a few of my other "sweet" covers with their respective actor inspirations  and settings~

For The Gunslinger and the Heiress the scene was a pier in San Diego harbor.

For Familiar Stranger in Clear Springs, the scene was a walk along the shore just outside of town.

For the Gunslinger and the Heiress, I asked if they could use a cover model from one of their other books because he was my inspiration ~ sans the long hair! I was so happy that they agreed! I thought he worked out great for the cover.





To see the settings and heroes and additional characters, you might enjoy seeing the Pinterest Board that I make for each book at

https://www.pinterest.com/kathrynalbright

I hope you enjoyed this!

You can see excerpts and check out my other covers on my website

www.kathrynalbright.com.