The Two Sisters- Galloway (OK) pre1964 Moores B
[From Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwest, by Ethel and Chauncey Moore, 1964- single stanza with music. Most of the versions are much older than 1964, however no information is provided about when the ballad was learned. The Moore claim to have 19 versions of this ballad however they do not provide an excellent text for A or B.
R. Matteson 2014]
B. The Two Sisters, sung by G.W. Galloway of Bristow. Mr. Galloway was born in Alabama and came to Oklahoma in 1931. His parents were born in South Carolina, where his grandparents had settled when they came from England. It was cotton-chopping time that day in June when we called upon Mr. Galloway. A dozen men were coming from the field for lunch, and he had just started a roaring fire in the wood-burning cookstove. Yes, he knew old songs, but he had hungry men to feed and he should have lunch ready within the hour. In no time two cooks had prepared a meal of biscuits, blackberry cobbler, and smoked ham and placed it on the table. As a contented fullness tugged at their waistlines, the men gradually withdrew to the shade of near-by trees to rest, while Mr. Galloway began dictating his ballads. By three o'clock, eight of them had fallen into grace in our collection and warm friendship had begun.
There was old woman lived on the sea-shore,
Bow down
There was old woman lived on the sea-shore,
Bowing springs to me.
There was old woman lived on the sea-shore,
She had some daughters three or four.
Sing, "I'll be true to my love
If my love will be true to me."