The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 28 Nov 1954, Sunday
PROF. WILLIAMS OF BOONE IS COLLECTOR OF BALLADS
By Johnny Corey
BOONE, Nov. 27 -- College Professor, Cratis Williams, who is tabbed as America's authentic ballad-singers, says moutaineers have preserved folk songs, but do not necessarily have an option on them.
Williams should know. He is a son of the mountains and has spent much of his life collecting and singing ballads from Florida to New York. He's taught ballads and songs for 11 years at Appalachian State Teachers' College Here.
"I've discovered through personal appearances that people think ballads are sung only by mountaineers," he said. "But it's not true. They're sung on all levels of society and in every section of the country."
FOUND ONE NEAR COAST
In fact, he said, I found one of my favorites near the North Carolina coast. It was, 'It Rained a Mist,' given to me by Vivian Cherry, a teacher from Clinton."
But it is true that most persons, other than the mountaineers, who sing ballads don't know what they're singing, said Williams. Chances are the lyrics and tunes were picked up during childhood from their parents who in turn got them from their forefathers.
"I once heard a socialite warbling the resemblance of "Edward," he said. "This is a tragic ballad in which a mother encourages her son to kill his father. If I had told the lady what she was singing, she'd have probably been highly insulted."
Williams and Dr. Amos Abrams, editor of "North Carolina Education," discovered "Suffolk Miracle," a choice chant, at East Bend, near Winston-Salem. Pat Fry, an old-timer, gave it to them.
TELLS A STORY
Balladier Williams, who sports a neat moustache and goatee, describes a ballad as a song that tells a story. It originates from the people rather than a professional song-writer, or the parlors of the aristocratic or educated.
The process of ballad-making is centuries old. It takes place in any nation. Negroes gave America many good ones such as "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
But ballads of England and Scotland are older. They lived for hundreds of years in oral tradition. Some were brought to America by emigrants.
Williams says today there are 93 known in America and 15 in Canada. Of the 93 in America, 60 are sung in North Carolina.
Among the best known are "Bonny Barbara Allan," "The House Carpenter," "Sweet William's Ghost" and "The Twa Corbies." For the most part, they're sad stories put to music.
For example, "Sweet William's Ghost" tells of a beautiful woman who rides off with her dead lover and is carried to the grave.
"The Twa Corbies" is a discussion between two crows of the sweet meal they're going to make of a slain knight left by his sweetheart who has taken another mate.
The folk song professor also admits, however, that mountaineers have preserved the English and Scottish ballads better than any other population segment.
ISOLATED BY MOUNTAINS
He attributes this to the fact that mountain terrain greatly isolated them. And by continuing the mountaineer way of life, the mountainman hasn't been too affected by modern influence.
The more valuable ballads have been kept alive by mountain people who live in big houses along river valleys, he said. These families take great pride in family inheritance, have their feet on the ground and seem to have an instinctive taste.
But the "branch water" mountaineer hasn't done much toward preserving them, he said.
Williams is qualified to make these statements. Critics hail him as one of the most prolific characters and authentic singers of the ballad.
Alan Lomax, a famous cowboy song collector, describes him as the "most successful folklorist of them all. Not only does he know the scholarly aspect, but the spirit, too, having been reared in it."
PRODUCT OF KENTUCKY
Williams is a product of native mountain stock of eastern Kentucky. He's collected and sung folk songs ever since he discovered ballads in his Louisa, Ky., High School literature differed from what his people sang.
He then decided to sing the ballad as its actually sung by natives. There'd be no Hollywood glamor or theatrical popularizing in his renditions. His songs and singing would be absolutely authentic.
To assure this accuracy, the Kentuckian refused to formally train his voice. Folk singing is supposed to be artless, he said. He uses no accompaniment because he's never seen a native use one. He sings with a poker face. His voice is cold, emotionless.
This all adds up to genuine folk singing.
In public appearances which he makes before clubs, colleges, conventions and associations, Williams chooses his program from his collection of 500 ballads. He dug up 250 of these in his home county of Lawrence in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley area.
More than 100 were collected in North Carolina. Many were discovered from students who took his ballads class at Appalachian College.
BREAKS DOWN BARRIER
His attractive personality accounts largely for his success in finding new songs. Natives are generally cold toward a stranger. But Williams' warm friendliness breaks down the barrier. In short time, he has the family singing every song it knows.
When Williams calls on a likely native, he has his recorder with him. He asks the head of the family if he can sing for them. With permission, Williams chants a ballad that he thinks the family might know.
Then he invites the family members to sing songs they know like his. Pretty soon, the nearby mountains resound with many of the ballads which the hills of Scotland used to echo back in the Middle Ages.
And every so often a song comes out which Williams hasn't heard before. And another ballad is added to his mounting collection.
*************************************
The Daily Times-News (Burlington, NC), 06 Feb 1959, Friday
SPELLING WON'T BECOME LOST ART IF APPALACHIAN PROF HAS HIS WAY
There are some good spellers, those people from both the student and adult classes who can hear a word pronounced and immediately spell it correctly.
There are those who find that among their biggest problems in communicating with the people is through the written word. They start thinking about how to spell certain words, and they end up not being able to spell cat.
Cratis Williams of Appalachian State Teachers College, says that one-third of college freshmen frequently misspelled these simple words:
Losing
Writing
Dropped
Two hundred of each 600 frosh put two o's in losing, two t's in writing but delete one "p" in dropped.
Misspelling he says, is common from coast to coast. Some professors overlook them, excusing the errors as inadvertent ones or making believe they don't exist.
But not Cratis Williams. This 29-year veteran of teaching conducts a formal eight-week remedial class foe collegians below par.
As far as is known, the spelling course is the only one on a campus in the nation. Backbone of it is words and drilling, just like march and gun drills Marine recruits get at Paris Island.
Few college officials like to admit the necessity of teaching spelling. It should be learned in the grades. Nevertheless, like Hillary's Mt. Everest, the problem "is there," and Williams is conquering it.
The genial educator worked out a book for the course. The nation's only speller, it gives all rules, words and exercises necessary for one to patch up spelling deficiencies.
Williams' remedial course is required for those below level at ASTC.
Students must pass it before moving forward. Only exceptions: A few non-spellers.
Williams defines a non-speller as "one who just can't spell no matter how hard he tries." This alone doesn't wash a pupil out of college, however.
If the non-speller shows ability in other subjects and makes a dictionary his sweetheart, chances are he can pass.
Since spelling isn't related to intelligence, Professor Williams explains, a poor speller but otherwise bright pupil might actually do well in college.
The brilliant American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a high IQer who couldn't spell but got along. Yet there's been only one Hawthorne.
Expert Williams finds this one rule helps a poor speller more than any other:
"If a word ends in silent 'e,' drop the 'e' to add 'ing.' "
"Not knowing this accounts for one spelling changing as changeing."
After 12 years in grade school why are there college freshmen not knowing such a simple rule?
Williams thinks spelling is taught incidentally rather than formally in most grades. This is adequate for one-third the students, he says. But the other two-thirds should be taught formally in order to learn.
By "formally" the professor means the drill method--writing words over and over again until they become second nature with one.
The good speller is one who can dash off words without thinking how to spell them, he contends.
Williams pooh-poohs oral spelling. To stick in mind, words must be mastered through writing. Bright kids spelling on TV shows can't correctly write half the words, the professor states.
Williams is not the "cut-and-dry" type English teacher who's failed to modernize teaching methods. From Lawrence County in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley originally, he's a colorful personality. Can strum a banjo, sing ballads, and once taught in New York's Bohemian Greenwich Village. One year he sported a goatee to his students' amusement.
Dr. Amos Abrams, now editor of North Carolina Education Magazine, began in 1941 Appalachian's spelling laboratory.
In 1946 Williams took over and has since picked out 400 most frequently misspelled words by freshmen. Here's a few samples. Check for fun how well your wife (or husband) and children can do.
To pass Williams' course, 9 out of 10 must be spelled correctly.
Whose, whether, valleys, villain, similar, familiar, possible, operate, legible, grammar, recommend, privilege, proceed, restaurant, rhythm, politician, recognize, weather, weekend, sincerely, terrible, tragedy, tries, stationary, studying, succeed, successful, surprise, striking, respectfully.
*************************************
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 13 May 1985, Monday
CRATIS WILLIAMS DIES; APPALACHIAN FOLKLORIST
The Associated Press:
BOONE -- Cratis Williams, a widely known Appalachian folklorist and scholar, died on Saturday -- one day before he was to receive his fifth honorary degree. He was 74.
"Cratis Williams was a real 'mountain man' in every sense of the word," Appalachian State University Chancellor John Thomas said. "In his early years he lived the mountain life. In his later years he studied it."
Williams was to have received the doctorate of humane letters degree from Appalachian State University on Sunday for his contributions and preservation of mountain culture.
In recommending Williams for the honorary doctorate, Thomas said that what his work had "inspired in others is of inestimable value in giving the people of the mountains an identity and sense of roots."
Williams, known as Mr. Appalachia for his scholarly work interpreting the heritage of the Appalachians, began his career in education when he was 18. He taught in one-room schools in his home state of Kentucky, working for eight years as a high school English teacher and principal.
He joined the ASU faculty in 1942 and was dean of the graduate school -- now named the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School -- from 1958 to 1975. He retired in 1976, but continued to work part-time as a special assistant to the chancellor and was writing a history of the university.
Williams attended Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., and received a bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kentuck(y) and a Ph.D. from New York University.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete Sunday, a spokesman for ASU said.
*************************************
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 14 May 1985, Tuesday
CRATIS WILLIAMS FUNERAL SERVICES
BOONE -- Memorial services for Cratis D. Williams, who died Saturday, will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday in University Hall of Appalachian State University in Boone.
Surviving are his wife, Elizabeth Lingerfelt Williams; a son, David Cratis Williams of Winston-Salem; a daughter, Sophie Williams, of Boise, Idaho; two sisters, Mabel Barber of Morehead, Ky., and Ruth Lester, of Boone; and a brother, Ottie Curtis Williams of Ashland, KY.
Memorials may be made to the Cratis D. Williams Memorial scholarship fund, in care of Appalachian State University.
Hampton Funeral Service in Boone is in charge of the arrangements.
*************************************
Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram, 23 May 1985, Thursday
Folk Ways and Folk Speech
By Rogers Whitener
APPALACHIAN NATIVE DIES, OVERCAME ILLNESS AND SIZE
Wire services last week carried an announcement of the death of Dr. Cratis Williams, Appalachian native and nationally known educator and folklorist.
They listed his various positions, accomplishments and honors as a teacher, writer, lecturer and administrator.
But not the whole story of a Kentucky mountain boy, diminutive in stature but large of mind, who overcame background, illness and size to earn the sobriquet "Mr. Appalachia."
Cratis simply preferred to think of himself as a complete mountaineer, having grown up in the Big Sandy Valley, often called, "Kentucky's last frontier."
Here in an isolated valley relatively untouched by outside influences, he learned the traditions of his people, whose songs, hymns, religious attitudes, manners, customs and speech were essentially those of what he called "the borderers of the 19th century."
He also experienced the learning problems of the one-room school -- often called "blab school" in his day from the practice of studying aloud.
According to Cratis "it was kind of rote learning, not altogether bad, but it seemed to be largely directed toward keeping the youngsters out of mischief as much as anything else."
High school was something else. Cratis was the first youngster from his valley to attend such a school, 25 miles from home and located at Louisa, the county seat. Here he found himself in competition with students from better educational backgrounds.
And he was introduced to hazing.
"I never weighed more than a hundred pounds during my four years of high school," he often said, "and I naturally took a lot of pushing around from the bigger boys. Sometimes they made life miserable for me."
Eventually, he was forced to take stock of the situation.
"One day," he said, "I walked out in the woods, sat down on a log and began to puzzle things out. I decided I'd never be big enough or strong enough to do very much in a physical way, such as participating in sports, so I determined I'd go the other route and be clever."
Not tricky clever. That would never be his way -- but mountain clever, in the sense of being obliging and good natured as well as quick-witted and skillful.
The tactics soon paid off. His circle of friends grew to the extent that he was elected to various class offices and selected as editor of the high school paper. He also became something of a performer, singing the traditional hymns and ballads which he had learned from early childhood.
This interest continued as he pursued higher education degrees at Cumberland College and the University of Kentucky, filled the post of high school principal, and set his sights on college teaching.
I met Cratis in the 40's when I was an undergraduate at Appalachian (then Appalachian State Teachers College) and when he had just joined the faculty after a major victory over the Appalachian national nemesis, tuberculosis. He probably was the best teacher I was to know in my academic experience.
His English classes were lively ones, as he poked, kidded and sometimes shocked his uninitiated charges, introducing folk and Freudian fare that took some time to digest.
Along the way, however, the more inquisitive students began beating a path to his office door and the erstwhile resisters found themselves engaged in the fascinating game of mind-stretching.
Later students were not so fortunate, for the academic ladder led upward for Cratis to dean of the graduate school (now the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School), acting as vice-chancellor for academic affairs, and, for a year, acting chancellor.
In such posts his followers became faculty members and younger university administrative officers whom he counselled (sic) on the ins and outs on getting things done in academe.
Even the chancellor (then Dr. Herbert Wey) was occasionally the counseled. "Sometimes I thought Cratis was an imp of the devil," he said, "for he seemed to read my mind and know not only that I was making a hasty decision but that I would change my mind in a matter of days. Meantime he wouldn't have taken any action and there was no embarrassment by way of having to countermand orders.
Honors piled up for Cratis in the later years: the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, the annual award of the Western North Carolina Historical Association, the O. Max Gardner Award, four honorary doctor degrees and national recognition as a spokesman for Appalachia.
On the day following his death he had been scheduled to receive a doctor of humane letters degree from Appalachian State.
Cratis Williams: a clever mountain man.
*************************************
North Carolina Death Collection, 1908-2004 about Cratis Dearl Williams
Born on Caines Creek, the son of Mona Whitt and Curtis Williams. He first married Sylvia Graham in 1937. She succumbed to TB in 1942. His second wife was Elizabeth Lingerfelt (born Athens, TN); married in 1949 and had two children. His career encompassed a wide span of teaching positions. He was a renowned authority on mountain life, speech and graduate programs in eduation. He was the major force behind the creation of the Center for Appalachian Studies in 1979, as well as the MA degree in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University in 1980. He was the author of several books and received many awards and honorary degrees.
*************************************
From Amazon:
Prior to his death in 1985, Cratis Williams was a leading scholar of and spokesperson for Appalachian life and literature and a pioneer of the Appalachian studies movement. Williams was born in a log cabin on Caines Creek, Lawrence County, Kentucky, in 1911. To use his own terms, he was "a complete mountaineer." This book is an edited compilation of Williams' memoirs of his childhood. These autobiographical reminiscences often take the form of a folktale, with individual titles such as "Preacher Lang Gets Drunk" and "The Double Murder at Sledges." Schooled initially in traditional stories and ballads, he learned to read by the light of his grandfather's whiskey still and excelled at the local one-room school. After becoming the first person from Caines Creek to attend and graduate from the county high school in Louisa, he taught in one-room schools while pursuing his own education. He earned both a BA and MA from the University of Kentucky before moving to Appalachian State Teacher's College in 1942; later he earned a Ph.D. from New York University and then returned to Appalachian State.
*************************************
Name: Cratis Dearl Williams
Gender: Male
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Social Security Number: 403206992
Father's Last Name: W
Age: 74
Date of Birth: 5 Apr 1911
Birth Location: Kentucky
Birth State: Kentucky
Residence City: Boone
Residence County: Watauga
Residence state: North Carolina
Date of Death: 11 May 1985
Death City: Boone
Death County: Watauga
Death State: North Carolina
Autopsy: No
Institution: General Hospital
Attendant: Physician
Burial Location: Cremation in state
Source Vendor: NC Department of Health. North Carolina Deaths, 1983-87
PROF. WILLIAMS OF BOONE IS COLLECTOR OF BALLADS
By Johnny Corey
BOONE, Nov. 27 -- College Professor, Cratis Williams, who is tabbed as America's authentic ballad-singers, says moutaineers have preserved folk songs, but do not necessarily have an option on them.
Williams should know. He is a son of the mountains and has spent much of his life collecting and singing ballads from Florida to New York. He's taught ballads and songs for 11 years at Appalachian State Teachers' College Here.
"I've discovered through personal appearances that people think ballads are sung only by mountaineers," he said. "But it's not true. They're sung on all levels of society and in every section of the country."
FOUND ONE NEAR COAST
In fact, he said, I found one of my favorites near the North Carolina coast. It was, 'It Rained a Mist,' given to me by Vivian Cherry, a teacher from Clinton."
But it is true that most persons, other than the mountaineers, who sing ballads don't know what they're singing, said Williams. Chances are the lyrics and tunes were picked up during childhood from their parents who in turn got them from their forefathers.
"I once heard a socialite warbling the resemblance of "Edward," he said. "This is a tragic ballad in which a mother encourages her son to kill his father. If I had told the lady what she was singing, she'd have probably been highly insulted."
Williams and Dr. Amos Abrams, editor of "North Carolina Education," discovered "Suffolk Miracle," a choice chant, at East Bend, near Winston-Salem. Pat Fry, an old-timer, gave it to them.
TELLS A STORY
Balladier Williams, who sports a neat moustache and goatee, describes a ballad as a song that tells a story. It originates from the people rather than a professional song-writer, or the parlors of the aristocratic or educated.
The process of ballad-making is centuries old. It takes place in any nation. Negroes gave America many good ones such as "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
But ballads of England and Scotland are older. They lived for hundreds of years in oral tradition. Some were brought to America by emigrants.
Williams says today there are 93 known in America and 15 in Canada. Of the 93 in America, 60 are sung in North Carolina.
Among the best known are "Bonny Barbara Allan," "The House Carpenter," "Sweet William's Ghost" and "The Twa Corbies." For the most part, they're sad stories put to music.
For example, "Sweet William's Ghost" tells of a beautiful woman who rides off with her dead lover and is carried to the grave.
"The Twa Corbies" is a discussion between two crows of the sweet meal they're going to make of a slain knight left by his sweetheart who has taken another mate.
The folk song professor also admits, however, that mountaineers have preserved the English and Scottish ballads better than any other population segment.
ISOLATED BY MOUNTAINS
He attributes this to the fact that mountain terrain greatly isolated them. And by continuing the mountaineer way of life, the mountainman hasn't been too affected by modern influence.
The more valuable ballads have been kept alive by mountain people who live in big houses along river valleys, he said. These families take great pride in family inheritance, have their feet on the ground and seem to have an instinctive taste.
But the "branch water" mountaineer hasn't done much toward preserving them, he said.
Williams is qualified to make these statements. Critics hail him as one of the most prolific characters and authentic singers of the ballad.
Alan Lomax, a famous cowboy song collector, describes him as the "most successful folklorist of them all. Not only does he know the scholarly aspect, but the spirit, too, having been reared in it."
PRODUCT OF KENTUCKY
Williams is a product of native mountain stock of eastern Kentucky. He's collected and sung folk songs ever since he discovered ballads in his Louisa, Ky., High School literature differed from what his people sang.
He then decided to sing the ballad as its actually sung by natives. There'd be no Hollywood glamor or theatrical popularizing in his renditions. His songs and singing would be absolutely authentic.
To assure this accuracy, the Kentuckian refused to formally train his voice. Folk singing is supposed to be artless, he said. He uses no accompaniment because he's never seen a native use one. He sings with a poker face. His voice is cold, emotionless.
This all adds up to genuine folk singing.
In public appearances which he makes before clubs, colleges, conventions and associations, Williams chooses his program from his collection of 500 ballads. He dug up 250 of these in his home county of Lawrence in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley area.
More than 100 were collected in North Carolina. Many were discovered from students who took his ballads class at Appalachian College.
BREAKS DOWN BARRIER
His attractive personality accounts largely for his success in finding new songs. Natives are generally cold toward a stranger. But Williams' warm friendliness breaks down the barrier. In short time, he has the family singing every song it knows.
When Williams calls on a likely native, he has his recorder with him. He asks the head of the family if he can sing for them. With permission, Williams chants a ballad that he thinks the family might know.
Then he invites the family members to sing songs they know like his. Pretty soon, the nearby mountains resound with many of the ballads which the hills of Scotland used to echo back in the Middle Ages.
And every so often a song comes out which Williams hasn't heard before. And another ballad is added to his mounting collection.
*************************************
The Daily Times-News (Burlington, NC), 06 Feb 1959, Friday
SPELLING WON'T BECOME LOST ART IF APPALACHIAN PROF HAS HIS WAY
There are some good spellers, those people from both the student and adult classes who can hear a word pronounced and immediately spell it correctly.
There are those who find that among their biggest problems in communicating with the people is through the written word. They start thinking about how to spell certain words, and they end up not being able to spell cat.
Cratis Williams of Appalachian State Teachers College, says that one-third of college freshmen frequently misspelled these simple words:
Losing
Writing
Dropped
Two hundred of each 600 frosh put two o's in losing, two t's in writing but delete one "p" in dropped.
Misspelling he says, is common from coast to coast. Some professors overlook them, excusing the errors as inadvertent ones or making believe they don't exist.
But not Cratis Williams. This 29-year veteran of teaching conducts a formal eight-week remedial class foe collegians below par.
As far as is known, the spelling course is the only one on a campus in the nation. Backbone of it is words and drilling, just like march and gun drills Marine recruits get at Paris Island.
Few college officials like to admit the necessity of teaching spelling. It should be learned in the grades. Nevertheless, like Hillary's Mt. Everest, the problem "is there," and Williams is conquering it.
The genial educator worked out a book for the course. The nation's only speller, it gives all rules, words and exercises necessary for one to patch up spelling deficiencies.
Williams' remedial course is required for those below level at ASTC.
Students must pass it before moving forward. Only exceptions: A few non-spellers.
Williams defines a non-speller as "one who just can't spell no matter how hard he tries." This alone doesn't wash a pupil out of college, however.
If the non-speller shows ability in other subjects and makes a dictionary his sweetheart, chances are he can pass.
Since spelling isn't related to intelligence, Professor Williams explains, a poor speller but otherwise bright pupil might actually do well in college.
The brilliant American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a high IQer who couldn't spell but got along. Yet there's been only one Hawthorne.
Expert Williams finds this one rule helps a poor speller more than any other:
"If a word ends in silent 'e,' drop the 'e' to add 'ing.' "
"Not knowing this accounts for one spelling changing as changeing."
After 12 years in grade school why are there college freshmen not knowing such a simple rule?
Williams thinks spelling is taught incidentally rather than formally in most grades. This is adequate for one-third the students, he says. But the other two-thirds should be taught formally in order to learn.
By "formally" the professor means the drill method--writing words over and over again until they become second nature with one.
The good speller is one who can dash off words without thinking how to spell them, he contends.
Williams pooh-poohs oral spelling. To stick in mind, words must be mastered through writing. Bright kids spelling on TV shows can't correctly write half the words, the professor states.
Williams is not the "cut-and-dry" type English teacher who's failed to modernize teaching methods. From Lawrence County in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley originally, he's a colorful personality. Can strum a banjo, sing ballads, and once taught in New York's Bohemian Greenwich Village. One year he sported a goatee to his students' amusement.
Dr. Amos Abrams, now editor of North Carolina Education Magazine, began in 1941 Appalachian's spelling laboratory.
In 1946 Williams took over and has since picked out 400 most frequently misspelled words by freshmen. Here's a few samples. Check for fun how well your wife (or husband) and children can do.
To pass Williams' course, 9 out of 10 must be spelled correctly.
Whose, whether, valleys, villain, similar, familiar, possible, operate, legible, grammar, recommend, privilege, proceed, restaurant, rhythm, politician, recognize, weather, weekend, sincerely, terrible, tragedy, tries, stationary, studying, succeed, successful, surprise, striking, respectfully.
*************************************
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 13 May 1985, Monday
CRATIS WILLIAMS DIES; APPALACHIAN FOLKLORIST
The Associated Press:
BOONE -- Cratis Williams, a widely known Appalachian folklorist and scholar, died on Saturday -- one day before he was to receive his fifth honorary degree. He was 74.
"Cratis Williams was a real 'mountain man' in every sense of the word," Appalachian State University Chancellor John Thomas said. "In his early years he lived the mountain life. In his later years he studied it."
Williams was to have received the doctorate of humane letters degree from Appalachian State University on Sunday for his contributions and preservation of mountain culture.
In recommending Williams for the honorary doctorate, Thomas said that what his work had "inspired in others is of inestimable value in giving the people of the mountains an identity and sense of roots."
Williams, known as Mr. Appalachia for his scholarly work interpreting the heritage of the Appalachians, began his career in education when he was 18. He taught in one-room schools in his home state of Kentucky, working for eight years as a high school English teacher and principal.
He joined the ASU faculty in 1942 and was dean of the graduate school -- now named the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School -- from 1958 to 1975. He retired in 1976, but continued to work part-time as a special assistant to the chancellor and was writing a history of the university.
Williams attended Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., and received a bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kentuck(y) and a Ph.D. from New York University.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete Sunday, a spokesman for ASU said.
*************************************
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 14 May 1985, Tuesday
CRATIS WILLIAMS FUNERAL SERVICES
BOONE -- Memorial services for Cratis D. Williams, who died Saturday, will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday in University Hall of Appalachian State University in Boone.
Surviving are his wife, Elizabeth Lingerfelt Williams; a son, David Cratis Williams of Winston-Salem; a daughter, Sophie Williams, of Boise, Idaho; two sisters, Mabel Barber of Morehead, Ky., and Ruth Lester, of Boone; and a brother, Ottie Curtis Williams of Ashland, KY.
Memorials may be made to the Cratis D. Williams Memorial scholarship fund, in care of Appalachian State University.
Hampton Funeral Service in Boone is in charge of the arrangements.
*************************************
Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram, 23 May 1985, Thursday
Folk Ways and Folk Speech
By Rogers Whitener
APPALACHIAN NATIVE DIES, OVERCAME ILLNESS AND SIZE
Wire services last week carried an announcement of the death of Dr. Cratis Williams, Appalachian native and nationally known educator and folklorist.
They listed his various positions, accomplishments and honors as a teacher, writer, lecturer and administrator.
But not the whole story of a Kentucky mountain boy, diminutive in stature but large of mind, who overcame background, illness and size to earn the sobriquet "Mr. Appalachia."
Cratis simply preferred to think of himself as a complete mountaineer, having grown up in the Big Sandy Valley, often called, "Kentucky's last frontier."
Here in an isolated valley relatively untouched by outside influences, he learned the traditions of his people, whose songs, hymns, religious attitudes, manners, customs and speech were essentially those of what he called "the borderers of the 19th century."
He also experienced the learning problems of the one-room school -- often called "blab school" in his day from the practice of studying aloud.
According to Cratis "it was kind of rote learning, not altogether bad, but it seemed to be largely directed toward keeping the youngsters out of mischief as much as anything else."
High school was something else. Cratis was the first youngster from his valley to attend such a school, 25 miles from home and located at Louisa, the county seat. Here he found himself in competition with students from better educational backgrounds.
And he was introduced to hazing.
"I never weighed more than a hundred pounds during my four years of high school," he often said, "and I naturally took a lot of pushing around from the bigger boys. Sometimes they made life miserable for me."
Eventually, he was forced to take stock of the situation.
"One day," he said, "I walked out in the woods, sat down on a log and began to puzzle things out. I decided I'd never be big enough or strong enough to do very much in a physical way, such as participating in sports, so I determined I'd go the other route and be clever."
Not tricky clever. That would never be his way -- but mountain clever, in the sense of being obliging and good natured as well as quick-witted and skillful.
The tactics soon paid off. His circle of friends grew to the extent that he was elected to various class offices and selected as editor of the high school paper. He also became something of a performer, singing the traditional hymns and ballads which he had learned from early childhood.
This interest continued as he pursued higher education degrees at Cumberland College and the University of Kentucky, filled the post of high school principal, and set his sights on college teaching.
I met Cratis in the 40's when I was an undergraduate at Appalachian (then Appalachian State Teachers College) and when he had just joined the faculty after a major victory over the Appalachian national nemesis, tuberculosis. He probably was the best teacher I was to know in my academic experience.
His English classes were lively ones, as he poked, kidded and sometimes shocked his uninitiated charges, introducing folk and Freudian fare that took some time to digest.
Along the way, however, the more inquisitive students began beating a path to his office door and the erstwhile resisters found themselves engaged in the fascinating game of mind-stretching.
Later students were not so fortunate, for the academic ladder led upward for Cratis to dean of the graduate school (now the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School), acting as vice-chancellor for academic affairs, and, for a year, acting chancellor.
In such posts his followers became faculty members and younger university administrative officers whom he counselled (sic) on the ins and outs on getting things done in academe.
Even the chancellor (then Dr. Herbert Wey) was occasionally the counseled. "Sometimes I thought Cratis was an imp of the devil," he said, "for he seemed to read my mind and know not only that I was making a hasty decision but that I would change my mind in a matter of days. Meantime he wouldn't have taken any action and there was no embarrassment by way of having to countermand orders.
Honors piled up for Cratis in the later years: the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, the annual award of the Western North Carolina Historical Association, the O. Max Gardner Award, four honorary doctor degrees and national recognition as a spokesman for Appalachia.
On the day following his death he had been scheduled to receive a doctor of humane letters degree from Appalachian State.
Cratis Williams: a clever mountain man.
*************************************
North Carolina Death Collection, 1908-2004 about Cratis Dearl Williams
Born on Caines Creek, the son of Mona Whitt and Curtis Williams. He first married Sylvia Graham in 1937. She succumbed to TB in 1942. His second wife was Elizabeth Lingerfelt (born Athens, TN); married in 1949 and had two children. His career encompassed a wide span of teaching positions. He was a renowned authority on mountain life, speech and graduate programs in eduation. He was the major force behind the creation of the Center for Appalachian Studies in 1979, as well as the MA degree in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University in 1980. He was the author of several books and received many awards and honorary degrees.
*************************************
From Amazon:
Prior to his death in 1985, Cratis Williams was a leading scholar of and spokesperson for Appalachian life and literature and a pioneer of the Appalachian studies movement. Williams was born in a log cabin on Caines Creek, Lawrence County, Kentucky, in 1911. To use his own terms, he was "a complete mountaineer." This book is an edited compilation of Williams' memoirs of his childhood. These autobiographical reminiscences often take the form of a folktale, with individual titles such as "Preacher Lang Gets Drunk" and "The Double Murder at Sledges." Schooled initially in traditional stories and ballads, he learned to read by the light of his grandfather's whiskey still and excelled at the local one-room school. After becoming the first person from Caines Creek to attend and graduate from the county high school in Louisa, he taught in one-room schools while pursuing his own education. He earned both a BA and MA from the University of Kentucky before moving to Appalachian State Teacher's College in 1942; later he earned a Ph.D. from New York University and then returned to Appalachian State.
*************************************
Name: Cratis Dearl Williams
Gender: Male
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Social Security Number: 403206992
Father's Last Name: W
Age: 74
Date of Birth: 5 Apr 1911
Birth Location: Kentucky
Birth State: Kentucky
Residence City: Boone
Residence County: Watauga
Residence state: North Carolina
Date of Death: 11 May 1985
Death City: Boone
Death County: Watauga
Death State: North Carolina
Autopsy: No
Institution: General Hospital
Attendant: Physician
Burial Location: Cremation in state
Source Vendor: NC Department of Health. North Carolina Deaths, 1983-87
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 28 Nov 1954, Sunday
PROF. WILLIAMS OF BOONE IS COLLECTOR OF BALLADS
By Johnny Corey
BOONE, Nov. 27 -- College Professor, Cratis Williams, who is tabbed as America's authentic ballad-singers, says moutaineers have preserved folk songs, but do not necessarily have an option on them.
Williams should know. He is a son of the mountains and has spent much of his life collecting and singing ballads from Florida to New York. He's taught ballads and songs for 11 years at Appalachian State Teachers' College Here.
"I've discovered through personal appearances that people think ballads are sung only by mountaineers," he said. "But it's not true. They're sung on all levels of society and in every section of the country."
FOUND ONE NEAR COAST
In fact, he said, I found one of my favorites near the North Carolina coast. It was, 'It Rained a Mist,' given to me by Vivian Cherry, a teacher from Clinton."
But it is true that most persons, other than the mountaineers, who sing ballads don't know what they're singing, said Williams. Chances are the lyrics and tunes were picked up during childhood from their parents who in turn got them from their forefathers.
"I once heard a socialite warbling the resemblance of "Edward," he said. "This is a tragic ballad in which a mother encourages her son to kill his father. If I had told the lady what she was singing, she'd have probably been highly insulted."
Williams and Dr. Amos Abrams, editor of "North Carolina Education," discovered "Suffolk Miracle," a choice chant, at East Bend, near Winston-Salem. Pat Fry, an old-timer, gave it to them.
TELLS A STORY
Balladier Williams, who sports a neat moustache and goatee, describes a ballad as a song that tells a story. It originates from the people rather than a professional song-writer, or the parlors of the aristocratic or educated.
The process of ballad-making is centuries old. It takes place in any nation. Negroes gave America many good ones such as "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
But ballads of England and Scotland are older. They lived for hundreds of years in oral tradition. Some were brought to America by emigrants.
Williams says today there are 93 known in America and 15 in Canada. Of the 93 in America, 60 are sung in North Carolina.
Among the best known are "Bonny Barbara Allan," "The House Carpenter," "Sweet William's Ghost" and "The Twa Corbies." For the most part, they're sad stories put to music.
For example, "Sweet William's Ghost" tells of a beautiful woman who rides off with her dead lover and is carried to the grave.
"The Twa Corbies" is a discussion between two crows of the sweet meal they're going to make of a slain knight left by his sweetheart who has taken another mate.
The folk song professor also admits, however, that mountaineers have preserved the English and Scottish ballads better than any other population segment.
ISOLATED BY MOUNTAINS
He attributes this to the fact that mountain terrain greatly isolated them. And by continuing the mountaineer way of life, the mountainman hasn't been too affected by modern influence.
The more valuable ballads have been kept alive by mountain people who live in big houses along river valleys, he said. These families take great pride in family inheritance, have their feet on the ground and seem to have an instinctive taste.
But the "branch water" mountaineer hasn't done much toward preserving them, he said.
Williams is qualified to make these statements. Critics hail him as one of the most prolific characters and authentic singers of the ballad.
Alan Lomax, a famous cowboy song collector, describes him as the "most successful folklorist of them all. Not only does he know the scholarly aspect, but the spirit, too, having been reared in it."
PRODUCT OF KENTUCKY
Williams is a product of native mountain stock of eastern Kentucky. He's collected and sung folk songs ever since he discovered ballads in his Louisa, Ky., High School literature differed from what his people sang.
He then decided to sing the ballad as its actually sung by natives. There'd be no Hollywood glamor or theatrical popularizing in his renditions. His songs and singing would be absolutely authentic.
To assure this accuracy, the Kentuckian refused to formally train his voice. Folk singing is supposed to be artless, he said. He uses no accompaniment because he's never seen a native use one. He sings with a poker face. His voice is cold, emotionless.
This all adds up to genuine folk singing.
In public appearances which he makes before clubs, colleges, conventions and associations, Williams chooses his program from his collection of 500 ballads. He dug up 250 of these in his home county of Lawrence in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley area.
More than 100 were collected in North Carolina. Many were discovered from students who took his ballads class at Appalachian College.
BREAKS DOWN BARRIER
His attractive personality accounts largely for his success in finding new songs. Natives are generally cold toward a stranger. But Williams' warm friendliness breaks down the barrier. In short time, he has the family singing every song it knows.
When Williams calls on a likely native, he has his recorder with him. He asks the head of the family if he can sing for them. With permission, Williams chants a ballad that he thinks the family might know.
Then he invites the family members to sing songs they know like his. Pretty soon, the nearby mountains resound with many of the ballads which the hills of Scotland used to echo back in the Middle Ages.
And every so often a song comes out which Williams hasn't heard before. And another ballad is added to his mounting collection.
*************************************
The Daily Times-News (Burlington, NC), 06 Feb 1959, Friday
SPELLING WON'T BECOME LOST ART IF APPALACHIAN PROF HAS HIS WAY
There are some good spellers, those people from both the student and adult classes who can hear a word pronounced and immediately spell it correctly.
There are those who find that among their biggest problems in communicating with the people is through the written word. They start thinking about how to spell certain words, and they end up not being able to spell cat.
Cratis Williams of Appalachian State Teachers College, says that one-third of college freshmen frequently misspelled these simple words:
Losing
Writing
Dropped
Two hundred of each 600 frosh put two o's in losing, two t's in writing but delete one "p" in dropped.
Misspelling he says, is common from coast to coast. Some professors overlook them, excusing the errors as inadvertent ones or making believe they don't exist.
But not Cratis Williams. This 29-year veteran of teaching conducts a formal eight-week remedial class foe collegians below par.
As far as is known, the spelling course is the only one on a campus in the nation. Backbone of it is words and drilling, just like march and gun drills Marine recruits get at Paris Island.
Few college officials like to admit the necessity of teaching spelling. It should be learned in the grades. Nevertheless, like Hillary's Mt. Everest, the problem "is there," and Williams is conquering it.
The genial educator worked out a book for the course. The nation's only speller, it gives all rules, words and exercises necessary for one to patch up spelling deficiencies.
Williams' remedial course is required for those below level at ASTC.
Students must pass it before moving forward. Only exceptions: A few non-spellers.
Williams defines a non-speller as "one who just can't spell no matter how hard he tries." This alone doesn't wash a pupil out of college, however.
If the non-speller shows ability in other subjects and makes a dictionary his sweetheart, chances are he can pass.
Since spelling isn't related to intelligence, Professor Williams explains, a poor speller but otherwise bright pupil might actually do well in college.
The brilliant American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a high IQer who couldn't spell but got along. Yet there's been only one Hawthorne.
Expert Williams finds this one rule helps a poor speller more than any other:
"If a word ends in silent 'e,' drop the 'e' to add 'ing.' "
"Not knowing this accounts for one spelling changing as changeing."
After 12 years in grade school why are there college freshmen not knowing such a simple rule?
Williams thinks spelling is taught incidentally rather than formally in most grades. This is adequate for one-third the students, he says. But the other two-thirds should be taught formally in order to learn.
By "formally" the professor means the drill method--writing words over and over again until they become second nature with one.
The good speller is one who can dash off words without thinking how to spell them, he contends.
Williams pooh-poohs oral spelling. To stick in mind, words must be mastered through writing. Bright kids spelling on TV shows can't correctly write half the words, the professor states.
Williams is not the "cut-and-dry" type English teacher who's failed to modernize teaching methods. From Lawrence County in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley originally, he's a colorful personality. Can strum a banjo, sing ballads, and once taught in New York's Bohemian Greenwich Village. One year he sported a goatee to his students' amusement.
Dr. Amos Abrams, now editor of North Carolina Education Magazine, began in 1941 Appalachian's spelling laboratory.
In 1946 Williams took over and has since picked out 400 most frequently misspelled words by freshmen. Here's a few samples. Check for fun how well your wife (or husband) and children can do.
To pass Williams' course, 9 out of 10 must be spelled correctly.
Whose, whether, valleys, villain, similar, familiar, possible, operate, legible, grammar, recommend, privilege, proceed, restaurant, rhythm, politician, recognize, weather, weekend, sincerely, terrible, tragedy, tries, stationary, studying, succeed, successful, surprise, striking, respectfully.
*************************************
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 13 May 1985, Monday
CRATIS WILLIAMS DIES; APPALACHIAN FOLKLORIST
The Associated Press:
BOONE -- Cratis Williams, a widely known Appalachian folklorist and scholar, died on Saturday -- one day before he was to receive his fifth honorary degree. He was 74.
"Cratis Williams was a real 'mountain man' in every sense of the word," Appalachian State University Chancellor John Thomas said. "In his early years he lived the mountain life. In his later years he studied it."
Williams was to have received the doctorate of humane letters degree from Appalachian State University on Sunday for his contributions and preservation of mountain culture.
In recommending Williams for the honorary doctorate, Thomas said that what his work had "inspired in others is of inestimable value in giving the people of the mountains an identity and sense of roots."
Williams, known as Mr. Appalachia for his scholarly work interpreting the heritage of the Appalachians, began his career in education when he was 18. He taught in one-room schools in his home state of Kentucky, working for eight years as a high school English teacher and principal.
He joined the ASU faculty in 1942 and was dean of the graduate school -- now named the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School -- from 1958 to 1975. He retired in 1976, but continued to work part-time as a special assistant to the chancellor and was writing a history of the university.
Williams attended Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., and received a bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kentuck(y) and a Ph.D. from New York University.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete Sunday, a spokesman for ASU said.
*************************************
The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 14 May 1985, Tuesday
CRATIS WILLIAMS FUNERAL SERVICES
BOONE -- Memorial services for Cratis D. Williams, who died Saturday, will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday in University Hall of Appalachian State University in Boone.
Surviving are his wife, Elizabeth Lingerfelt Williams; a son, David Cratis Williams of Winston-Salem; a daughter, Sophie Williams, of Boise, Idaho; two sisters, Mabel Barber of Morehead, Ky., and Ruth Lester, of Boone; and a brother, Ottie Curtis Williams of Ashland, KY.
Memorials may be made to the Cratis D. Williams Memorial scholarship fund, in care of Appalachian State University.
Hampton Funeral Service in Boone is in charge of the arrangements.
*************************************
Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram, 23 May 1985, Thursday
Folk Ways and Folk Speech
By Rogers Whitener
APPALACHIAN NATIVE DIES, OVERCAME ILLNESS AND SIZE
Wire services last week carried an announcement of the death of Dr. Cratis Williams, Appalachian native and nationally known educator and folklorist.
They listed his various positions, accomplishments and honors as a teacher, writer, lecturer and administrator.
But not the whole story of a Kentucky mountain boy, diminutive in stature but large of mind, who overcame background, illness and size to earn the sobriquet "Mr. Appalachia."
Cratis simply preferred to think of himself as a complete mountaineer, having grown up in the Big Sandy Valley, often called, "Kentucky's last frontier."
Here in an isolated valley relatively untouched by outside influences, he learned the traditions of his people, whose songs, hymns, religious attitudes, manners, customs and speech were essentially those of what he called "the borderers of the 19th century."
He also experienced the learning problems of the one-room school -- often called "blab school" in his day from the practice of studying aloud.
According to Cratis "it was kind of rote learning, not altogether bad, but it seemed to be largely directed toward keeping the youngsters out of mischief as much as anything else."
High school was something else. Cratis was the first youngster from his valley to attend such a school, 25 miles from home and located at Louisa, the county seat. Here he found himself in competition with students from better educational backgrounds.
And he was introduced to hazing.
"I never weighed more than a hundred pounds during my four years of high school," he often said, "and I naturally took a lot of pushing around from the bigger boys. Sometimes they made life miserable for me."
Eventually, he was forced to take stock of the situation.
"One day," he said, "I walked out in the woods, sat down on a log and began to puzzle things out. I decided I'd never be big enough or strong enough to do very much in a physical way, such as participating in sports, so I determined I'd go the other route and be clever."
Not tricky clever. That would never be his way -- but mountain clever, in the sense of being obliging and good natured as well as quick-witted and skillful.
The tactics soon paid off. His circle of friends grew to the extent that he was elected to various class offices and selected as editor of the high school paper. He also became something of a performer, singing the traditional hymns and ballads which he had learned from early childhood.
This interest continued as he pursued higher education degrees at Cumberland College and the University of Kentucky, filled the post of high school principal, and set his sights on college teaching.
I met Cratis in the 40's when I was an undergraduate at Appalachian (then Appalachian State Teachers College) and when he had just joined the faculty after a major victory over the Appalachian national nemesis, tuberculosis. He probably was the best teacher I was to know in my academic experience.
His English classes were lively ones, as he poked, kidded and sometimes shocked his uninitiated charges, introducing folk and Freudian fare that took some time to digest.
Along the way, however, the more inquisitive students began beating a path to his office door and the erstwhile resisters found themselves engaged in the fascinating game of mind-stretching.
Later students were not so fortunate, for the academic ladder led upward for Cratis to dean of the graduate school (now the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School), acting as vice-chancellor for academic affairs, and, for a year, acting chancellor.
In such posts his followers became faculty members and younger university administrative officers whom he counselled (sic) on the ins and outs on getting things done in academe.
Even the chancellor (then Dr. Herbert Wey) was occasionally the counseled. "Sometimes I thought Cratis was an imp of the devil," he said, "for he seemed to read my mind and know not only that I was making a hasty decision but that I would change my mind in a matter of days. Meantime he wouldn't have taken any action and there was no embarrassment by way of having to countermand orders.
Honors piled up for Cratis in the later years: the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, the annual award of the Western North Carolina Historical Association, the O. Max Gardner Award, four honorary doctor degrees and national recognition as a spokesman for Appalachia.
On the day following his death he had been scheduled to receive a doctor of humane letters degree from Appalachian State.
Cratis Williams: a clever mountain man.
*************************************
North Carolina Death Collection, 1908-2004 about Cratis Dearl Williams
Born on Caines Creek, the son of Mona Whitt and Curtis Williams. He first married Sylvia Graham in 1937. She succumbed to TB in 1942. His second wife was Elizabeth Lingerfelt (born Athens, TN); married in 1949 and had two children. His career encompassed a wide span of teaching positions. He was a renowned authority on mountain life, speech and graduate programs in eduation. He was the major force behind the creation of the Center for Appalachian Studies in 1979, as well as the MA degree in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University in 1980. He was the author of several books and received many awards and honorary degrees.
*************************************
From Amazon:
Prior to his death in 1985, Cratis Williams was a leading scholar of and spokesperson for Appalachian life and literature and a pioneer of the Appalachian studies movement. Williams was born in a log cabin on Caines Creek, Lawrence County, Kentucky, in 1911. To use his own terms, he was "a complete mountaineer." This book is an edited compilation of Williams' memoirs of his childhood. These autobiographical reminiscences often take the form of a folktale, with individual titles such as "Preacher Lang Gets Drunk" and "The Double Murder at Sledges." Schooled initially in traditional stories and ballads, he learned to read by the light of his grandfather's whiskey still and excelled at the local one-room school. After becoming the first person from Caines Creek to attend and graduate from the county high school in Louisa, he taught in one-room schools while pursuing his own education. He earned both a BA and MA from the University of Kentucky before moving to Appalachian State Teacher's College in 1942; later he earned a Ph.D. from New York University and then returned to Appalachian State.
*************************************
Name: Cratis Dearl Williams
Gender: Male
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Social Security Number: 403206992
Father's Last Name: W
Age: 74
Date of Birth: 5 Apr 1911
Birth Location: Kentucky
Birth State: Kentucky
Residence City: Boone
Residence County: Watauga
Residence state: North Carolina
Date of Death: 11 May 1985
Death City: Boone
Death County: Watauga
Death State: North Carolina
Autopsy: No
Institution: General Hospital
Attendant: Physician
Burial Location: Cremation in state
Source Vendor: NC Department of Health. North Carolina Deaths, 1983-87
PROF. WILLIAMS OF BOONE IS COLLECTOR OF BALLADS
By Johnny Corey
BOONE, Nov. 27 -- College Professor, Cratis Williams, who is tabbed as America's authentic ballad-singers, says moutaineers have preserved folk songs, but do not necessarily have an option on them.
Williams should know. He is a son of the mountains and has spent much of his life collecting and singing ballads from Florida to New York. He's taught ballads and songs for 11 years at Appalachian State Teachers' College Here.
"I've discovered through personal appearances that people think ballads are sung only by mountaineers," he said. "But it's not true. They're sung on all levels of society and in every section of the country."
FOUND ONE NEAR COAST
In fact, he said, I found one of my favorites near the North Carolina coast. It was, 'It Rained a Mist,' given to me by Vivian Cherry, a teacher from Clinton."
But it is true that most persons, other than the mountaineers, who sing ballads don't know what they're singing, said Williams. Chances are the lyrics and tunes were picked up during childhood from their parents who in turn got them from their forefathers.
"I once heard a socialite warbling the resemblance of "Edward," he said. "This is a tragic ballad in which a mother encourages her son to kill his father. If I had told the lady what she was singing, she'd have probably been highly insulted."
Williams and Dr. Amos Abrams, editor of "North Carolina Education," discovered "Suffolk Miracle," a choice chant, at East Bend, near Winston-Salem. Pat Fry, an old-timer, gave it to them.
TELLS A STORY
Balladier Williams, who sports a neat moustache and goatee, describes a ballad as a song that tells a story. It originates from the people rather than a professional song-writer, or the parlors of the aristocratic or educated.
The process of ballad-making is centuries old. It takes place in any nation. Negroes gave America many good ones such as "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
But ballads of England and Scotland are older. They lived for hundreds of years in oral tradition. Some were brought to America by emigrants.
Williams says today there are 93 known in America and 15 in Canada. Of the 93 in America, 60 are sung in North Carolina.
Among the best known are "Bonny Barbara Allan," "The House Carpenter," "Sweet William's Ghost" and "The Twa Corbies." For the most part, they're sad stories put to music.
For example, "Sweet William's Ghost" tells of a beautiful woman who rides off with her dead lover and is carried to the grave.
"The Twa Corbies" is a discussion between two crows of the sweet meal they're going to make of a slain knight left by his sweetheart who has taken another mate.
The folk song professor also admits, however, that mountaineers have preserved the English and Scottish ballads better than any other population segment.
ISOLATED BY MOUNTAINS
He attributes this to the fact that mountain terrain greatly isolated them. And by continuing the mountaineer way of life, the mountainman hasn't been too affected by modern influence.
The more valuable ballads have been kept alive by mountain people who live in big houses along river valleys, he said. These families take great pride in family inheritance, have their feet on the ground and seem to have an instinctive taste.
But the "branch water" mountaineer hasn't done much toward preserving them, he said.
Williams is qualified to make these statements. Critics hail him as one of the most prolific characters and authentic singers of the ballad.
Alan Lomax, a famous cowboy song collector, describes him as the "most successful folklorist of them all. Not only does he know the scholarly aspect, but the spirit, too, having been reared in it."
PRODUCT OF KENTUCKY
Williams is a product of native mountain stock of eastern Kentucky. He's collected and sung folk songs ever since he discovered ballads in his Louisa, Ky., High School literature differed from what his people sang.
He then decided to sing the ballad as its actually sung by natives. There'd be no Hollywood glamor or theatrical popularizing in his renditions. His songs and singing would be absolutely authentic.
To assure this accuracy, the Kentuckian refused to formally train his voice. Folk singing is supposed to be artless, he said. He uses no accompaniment because he's never seen a native use one. He sings with a poker face. His voice is cold, emotionless.
This all adds up to genuine folk singing.
In public appearances which he makes before clubs, colleges, conventions and associations, Williams chooses his program from his collection of 500 ballads. He dug up 250 of these in his home county of Lawrence in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley area.
More than 100 were collected in North Carolina. Many were discovered from students who took his ballads class at Appalachian College.
BREAKS DOWN BARRIER
His attractive personality accounts largely for his success in finding new songs. Natives are generally cold toward a stranger. But Williams' warm friendliness breaks down the barrier. In short time, he has the family singing every song it knows.
When Williams calls on a likely native, he has his recorder with him. He asks the head of the family if he can sing for them. With permission, Williams chants a ballad that he thinks the family might know.
Then he invites the family members to sing songs they know like his. Pretty soon, the nearby mountains resound with many of the ballads which the hills of Scotland used to echo back in the Middle Ages.
And every so often a song comes out which Williams hasn't heard before. And another ballad is added to his mounting collection.
*************************************
The Daily Times-News (Burlington, NC), 06 Feb 1959, Friday
SPELLING WON'T BECOME LOST ART IF APPALACHIAN PROF HAS HIS WAY
There are some good spellers, those people from both the student and adult classes who can hear a word pronounced and immediately spell it correctly.
There are those who find that among their biggest problems in communicating with the people is through the written word. They start thinking about how to spell certain words, and they end up not being able to spell cat.
Cratis Williams of Appalachian State Teachers College, says that one-third of college freshmen frequently misspelled these simple words:
Losing
Writing
Dropped
Two hundred of each 600 frosh put two o's in losing, two t's in writing but delete one "p" in dropped.
Misspelling he says, is common from coast to coast. Some professors overlook them, excusing the errors as inadvertent ones or making believe they don't exist.
But not Cratis Williams. This 29-year veteran of teaching conducts a formal eight-week remedial class foe collegians below par.
As far as is known, the spelling course is the only one on a campus in the nation. Backbone of it is words and drilling, just like march and gun drills Marine recruits get at Paris Island.
Few college officials like to admit the necessity of teaching spelling. It should be learned in the grades. Nevertheless, like Hillary's Mt. Everest, the problem "is there," and Williams is conquering it.
The genial educator worked out a book for the course. The nation's only speller, it gives all rules, words and exercises necessary for one to patch up spelling deficiencies.
Williams' remedial course is required for those below level at ASTC.
Students must pass it before moving forward. Only exceptions: A few non-spellers.
Williams defines a non-speller as "one who just can't spell no matter how hard he tries." This alone doesn't wash a pupil out of college, however.
If the non-speller shows ability in other subjects and makes a dictionary his sweetheart, chances are he can pass.
Since spelling isn't related to intelligence, Professor Williams explains, a poor speller but otherwise bright pupil might actually do well in college.
The brilliant American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a high IQer who couldn't spell but got along. Yet there's been only one Hawthorne.
Expert Williams finds this one rule helps a poor speller more than any other:
"If a word ends in silent 'e,' drop the 'e' to add 'ing.' "
"Not knowing this accounts for one spelling changing as changeing."
After 12 years in grade school why are there college freshmen not knowing such a simple rule?
Williams thinks spelling is taught incidentally rather than formally in most grades. This is adequate for one-third the students, he says. But the other two-thirds should be taught formally in order to learn.
By "formally" the professor means the drill method--writing words over and over again until they become second nature with one.
The good speller is one who can dash off words without thinking how to spell them, he contends.
Williams pooh-poohs oral spelling. To stick in mind, words must be mastered through writing. Bright kids spelling on TV shows can't correctly write half the words, the professor states.
Williams is not the "cut-and-dry" type English teacher who's failed to modernize teaching methods. From Lawrence County in Kentucky's Big Sandy Valley originally, he's a colorful personality. Can strum a banjo, sing ballads, and once taught in New York's Bohemian Greenwich Village. One year he sported a goatee to his students' amusement.
Dr. Amos Abrams, now editor of North Carolina Education Magazine, began in 1941 Appalachian's spelling laboratory.
In 1946 Williams took over and has since picked out 400 most frequently misspelled words by freshmen. Here's a few samples. Check for fun how well your wife (or husband) and children can do.
To pass Williams' course, 9 out of 10 must be spelled correctly.
Whose, whether, valleys, villain, similar, familiar, possible, operate, legible, grammar, recommend, privilege, proceed, restaurant, rhythm, politician, recognize, weather, weekend, sincerely, terrible, tragedy, tries, stationary, studying, succeed, successful, surprise, striking, respectfully.
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The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 13 May 1985, Monday
CRATIS WILLIAMS DIES; APPALACHIAN FOLKLORIST
The Associated Press:
BOONE -- Cratis Williams, a widely known Appalachian folklorist and scholar, died on Saturday -- one day before he was to receive his fifth honorary degree. He was 74.
"Cratis Williams was a real 'mountain man' in every sense of the word," Appalachian State University Chancellor John Thomas said. "In his early years he lived the mountain life. In his later years he studied it."
Williams was to have received the doctorate of humane letters degree from Appalachian State University on Sunday for his contributions and preservation of mountain culture.
In recommending Williams for the honorary doctorate, Thomas said that what his work had "inspired in others is of inestimable value in giving the people of the mountains an identity and sense of roots."
Williams, known as Mr. Appalachia for his scholarly work interpreting the heritage of the Appalachians, began his career in education when he was 18. He taught in one-room schools in his home state of Kentucky, working for eight years as a high school English teacher and principal.
He joined the ASU faculty in 1942 and was dean of the graduate school -- now named the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School -- from 1958 to 1975. He retired in 1976, but continued to work part-time as a special assistant to the chancellor and was writing a history of the university.
Williams attended Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky., and received a bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kentuck(y) and a Ph.D. from New York University.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete Sunday, a spokesman for ASU said.
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The Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, 14 May 1985, Tuesday
CRATIS WILLIAMS FUNERAL SERVICES
BOONE -- Memorial services for Cratis D. Williams, who died Saturday, will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday in University Hall of Appalachian State University in Boone.
Surviving are his wife, Elizabeth Lingerfelt Williams; a son, David Cratis Williams of Winston-Salem; a daughter, Sophie Williams, of Boise, Idaho; two sisters, Mabel Barber of Morehead, Ky., and Ruth Lester, of Boone; and a brother, Ottie Curtis Williams of Ashland, KY.
Memorials may be made to the Cratis D. Williams Memorial scholarship fund, in care of Appalachian State University.
Hampton Funeral Service in Boone is in charge of the arrangements.
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Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram, 23 May 1985, Thursday
Folk Ways and Folk Speech
By Rogers Whitener
APPALACHIAN NATIVE DIES, OVERCAME ILLNESS AND SIZE
Wire services last week carried an announcement of the death of Dr. Cratis Williams, Appalachian native and nationally known educator and folklorist.
They listed his various positions, accomplishments and honors as a teacher, writer, lecturer and administrator.
But not the whole story of a Kentucky mountain boy, diminutive in stature but large of mind, who overcame background, illness and size to earn the sobriquet "Mr. Appalachia."
Cratis simply preferred to think of himself as a complete mountaineer, having grown up in the Big Sandy Valley, often called, "Kentucky's last frontier."
Here in an isolated valley relatively untouched by outside influences, he learned the traditions of his people, whose songs, hymns, religious attitudes, manners, customs and speech were essentially those of what he called "the borderers of the 19th century."
He also experienced the learning problems of the one-room school -- often called "blab school" in his day from the practice of studying aloud.
According to Cratis "it was kind of rote learning, not altogether bad, but it seemed to be largely directed toward keeping the youngsters out of mischief as much as anything else."
High school was something else. Cratis was the first youngster from his valley to attend such a school, 25 miles from home and located at Louisa, the county seat. Here he found himself in competition with students from better educational backgrounds.
And he was introduced to hazing.
"I never weighed more than a hundred pounds during my four years of high school," he often said, "and I naturally took a lot of pushing around from the bigger boys. Sometimes they made life miserable for me."
Eventually, he was forced to take stock of the situation.
"One day," he said, "I walked out in the woods, sat down on a log and began to puzzle things out. I decided I'd never be big enough or strong enough to do very much in a physical way, such as participating in sports, so I determined I'd go the other route and be clever."
Not tricky clever. That would never be his way -- but mountain clever, in the sense of being obliging and good natured as well as quick-witted and skillful.
The tactics soon paid off. His circle of friends grew to the extent that he was elected to various class offices and selected as editor of the high school paper. He also became something of a performer, singing the traditional hymns and ballads which he had learned from early childhood.
This interest continued as he pursued higher education degrees at Cumberland College and the University of Kentucky, filled the post of high school principal, and set his sights on college teaching.
I met Cratis in the 40's when I was an undergraduate at Appalachian (then Appalachian State Teachers College) and when he had just joined the faculty after a major victory over the Appalachian national nemesis, tuberculosis. He probably was the best teacher I was to know in my academic experience.
His English classes were lively ones, as he poked, kidded and sometimes shocked his uninitiated charges, introducing folk and Freudian fare that took some time to digest.
Along the way, however, the more inquisitive students began beating a path to his office door and the erstwhile resisters found themselves engaged in the fascinating game of mind-stretching.
Later students were not so fortunate, for the academic ladder led upward for Cratis to dean of the graduate school (now the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School), acting as vice-chancellor for academic affairs, and, for a year, acting chancellor.
In such posts his followers became faculty members and younger university administrative officers whom he counselled (sic) on the ins and outs on getting things done in academe.
Even the chancellor (then Dr. Herbert Wey) was occasionally the counseled. "Sometimes I thought Cratis was an imp of the devil," he said, "for he seemed to read my mind and know not only that I was making a hasty decision but that I would change my mind in a matter of days. Meantime he wouldn't have taken any action and there was no embarrassment by way of having to countermand orders.
Honors piled up for Cratis in the later years: the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award, the annual award of the Western North Carolina Historical Association, the O. Max Gardner Award, four honorary doctor degrees and national recognition as a spokesman for Appalachia.
On the day following his death he had been scheduled to receive a doctor of humane letters degree from Appalachian State.
Cratis Williams: a clever mountain man.
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North Carolina Death Collection, 1908-2004 about Cratis Dearl Williams
Born on Caines Creek, the son of Mona Whitt and Curtis Williams. He first married Sylvia Graham in 1937. She succumbed to TB in 1942. His second wife was Elizabeth Lingerfelt (born Athens, TN); married in 1949 and had two children. His career encompassed a wide span of teaching positions. He was a renowned authority on mountain life, speech and graduate programs in eduation. He was the major force behind the creation of the Center for Appalachian Studies in 1979, as well as the MA degree in Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University in 1980. He was the author of several books and received many awards and honorary degrees.
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From Amazon:
Prior to his death in 1985, Cratis Williams was a leading scholar of and spokesperson for Appalachian life and literature and a pioneer of the Appalachian studies movement. Williams was born in a log cabin on Caines Creek, Lawrence County, Kentucky, in 1911. To use his own terms, he was "a complete mountaineer." This book is an edited compilation of Williams' memoirs of his childhood. These autobiographical reminiscences often take the form of a folktale, with individual titles such as "Preacher Lang Gets Drunk" and "The Double Murder at Sledges." Schooled initially in traditional stories and ballads, he learned to read by the light of his grandfather's whiskey still and excelled at the local one-room school. After becoming the first person from Caines Creek to attend and graduate from the county high school in Louisa, he taught in one-room schools while pursuing his own education. He earned both a BA and MA from the University of Kentucky before moving to Appalachian State Teacher's College in 1942; later he earned a Ph.D. from New York University and then returned to Appalachian State.
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Name: Cratis Dearl Williams
Gender: Male
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Social Security Number: 403206992
Father's Last Name: W
Age: 74
Date of Birth: 5 Apr 1911
Birth Location: Kentucky
Birth State: Kentucky
Residence City: Boone
Residence County: Watauga
Residence state: North Carolina
Date of Death: 11 May 1985
Death City: Boone
Death County: Watauga
Death State: North Carolina
Autopsy: No
Institution: General Hospital
Attendant: Physician
Burial Location: Cremation in state
Source Vendor: NC Department of Health. North Carolina Deaths, 1983-87
Gravesite Details
Cremation
Family Members
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