David Cohen illustration
Growing up in the Clinchfield Cotton Mill village in Marion, North Carolina, my mother Madeline and her older sister Helen were very close.
Music was an interest that bound them together through their early years. From childhood, Helen was a talented guitarist and my mother a strong singer. They became a musical duo and often sat singing on the front porch of their mill house.
“We sung ‘Home on the Range’ and other popular Western songs of the day,” my mother remembered. “We harmonized good together.” She noted that they performed at community functions, including a gathering at a park in Old Fort. She was proud that the local newspaper covered this event and reported Music provided by the Davis sisters. This performance, when she was 11 and Helen 13, fueled their ambition to reach a wider audience.
Two years later Helen’s boyfriend, Squats, drove them to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to audition for a radio show. My mother sang “Shine on Harvest Moon” to Helen’s guitar accompaniment.
They knew they had gotten the radio job when they were asked to come back to the station the following Thursday. On the way home, however, Helen and Squats got married.
“That ended our radio career,” my mother said.
Before Helen’s marriage she and my mother had several common interests, including meeting boys. Once they met two boys at a circus. “I dated the tightrope walker’s son, and Helen dated the bearded lady’s son,” mother said. “They couldn’t believe Helen and me were sisters.”
Though similar in petite build, my mother—a blue-eyed blonde—and Helen, whose hair was black and eyes brown, were opposites in looks.
Being the same size, though, my mother enjoyed borrowing Helen’s clothes.
“Helen was working then,” my mother said, “and she had nice clothes. She told me I could wear anything in her closet except a pink dress she had just bought. It still had the tags on it. Naturally, that’s the one I wanted to wear.”
“Did you wear it?” I asked.
“Of course I did,” she said, “and as soon as she got home, she looked at the dress and knew I’d worn it.”
“Did she get mad?” I asked.
“No.”
I wasn’t surprised, knowing Helen’s easy-going nature. I suspected that she knew all along the dress would be too tempting for her little sister to resist.
Through the years, my mother and Helen remained close, though Helen had settled in Drexel, 30 miles away. After Squats died she married Louis, a widower who was a skilled guitarist. Helen and Louis became a guitar duo, The Cherokee Sweethearts, and performed out in Cherokee and at the Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention.
Occasionally they brought their guitars and amplifier to our house to give us a private concert, playing songs like “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and “Wildwood Flower.” Helen and my mother would also make music during these visits—my mother playing our upright piano while Helen played the guitar.
In the later years of Helen’s life, I frequently drove my mother to Drexel for a visit. She would sit with Helen at her kitchen table and talk, their voices low and intimate, like two girls gossiping. I sensed they were in their own world—one formed long ago—that I couldn’t enter. So I sat in the living room, chatting with Louis, while my mother and her sister caught up.
My aunt Helen died in March 1998. The flowers in her yard were already blooming when she died. A love of flowers was another thing she and my mother shared, one they had inherited from their mama, who grew exquisite flowers during her lifetime.
In my mother’s final days, she was still telling the story about the Spartanburg radio job—one that might have led to greater things. But she told the story with more pride than regret. And her sister Helen, her best friend during their childhood in the Clinchfield Cotton Mill village, remained a comforting presence in her mind and heart until the end.