West Virginia's Omie Wise: The Folk Process Unveiled
by GERALD MILNES
Appalachian Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4 (SUMMER 1995), pp. 376-389
West Virginia's Omie Wise- The Folk Process Unveiled
[Gerry Milnes is folk arts coordinator at the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia. He has been writing about, collecting, and performing traditional music for 20 years. He recently produced a video documentary, Helvetia: The Swiss of West Virginia, which aired nationally on public television. His work has been published in Goldenseal and the Old-Time Herald, and his book, Granny Will Your Dog Bite, and Other Mountain Rhymes was published by Alfred Knopf in 1990.]
I'll tell you the story about little Naomi Wise
Of how she was flattered by John Lewis' lies.
-Verse from Randolph County, West Virginia[1]
In 1808 a young woman named Naomi Wise was murdered in Randolph County, North Carolina, probably by a man named John Lewis. The incident took place after a meeting at Adams's Spring, where Naomi had apparently gone to meet Lewis, her lover. He is thought to have drowned her in the Deep River near a place today known as Naomi's Ford. Lewis escaped to Kentucky but was later captured and returned to North Carolina where he stood trial for the crime. The jury acquitted him. Lewis is said to have con- fessed to the murder a few years afterward, on his deathbed.
Fig. 1. Grave marker set in 1968. Photo by Gerald Milnes
The murder of Naomi Wise is well documented through North Carolina court records and early texts. The story of Naomi Wise has been immortal- ized through a folk song tradition that has spread far and wide. In fact, the ballad is considered "North Carolina's principal single contribution to Ameri- can folk song."[2] In 1817 Mary Woody, believed to be an "eye witness" to the events surrounding Naomi's death, published a book about it.[3] Woody's book became the source for another version, The Story of Naomi Wise, or The Wrongs of a Beautiful Girl, published in 1874 by "Charlie Vernon," the pen name of Reverend Braxton Craven, born in 1822, who became president of Trinity College in Randolph County, North Carolina. Craven may have heard first-hand accounts of the 1808 incident. His account included a poem about the murdered girl, "Poor Naomi," on which most variants and recordings of the Omie Wise folk song appear to be based:
1 Come all good people, I'd have you draw near,
A sorrowful story you quickly shall hear;
A story I'll tell you about N'orni Wise,
How she was deluded by Lewis's lies.
2 He promised to marry and use me quite well;
But conduct contrary I sadly must tell,
He promised to meet me at Adams's spring;
He promised me marriage and many fine things.
3 Still nothing he gave, but yet flattered the case.
He says we'll be married and have no disgrace,
Come get up behind me, we'll go up to town.
And there we'll be married, in union be bound.
4 I got up behind him and straightway did go
To the bank of Deep river where the water did flow;
He says now Naomi, I'll tell you my mind,
I intend here to drown you and leave you behind.
5 O pity your infant and spare me my life;
Let me go rejected and be not your wife;
No pity, no pity, this monster did cry;
In Deep river's bottom your body shall lie.
6 The wretch then did choke her, as we understand,
And threw her in the river below the milldam;
Be it murder or treason, O! what a great crime,
To drown poor Naomi and leave her behind.
7 Naomi was missing they all did well know,
And hunting for her to the river did go;
And there found her floating on the water so deep,
Which caused all the people to sigh and to weep.
8 The neighbors were sent for to see the great sight,
While she lay floating all that long night;
So early next morning the inquest was held;
The jury correctly the murder did tell.[4]
Craven's 1874 pamphlet was reprinted in 1888, 1908, 1944, and 1952. By the early-to-mid 20th century, the folk song about Omie Wise had become widely known. Variants have turned up in poetry, prose, and song in over a hundred sources. Tragedies sung about a girl named variously Naoma, Naomi, Omie, Orna, Orni, Ona, Loni, Oni, etc., have been collected throughout the South. A similar song motif even shows up in African-Ameri- can tradition and dialect in Kentucky.[5] Claims to the murdered girl and the incident that brought about the song have come from Indiana and Missouri.[6]
West Virginia also claims the poor girl, and I've been looking into why. In 1992, an acquaintance told me that she had found a solitary grave in the woods on a mountainside near Cheat River in Randolph County, West Virginia, marked "Naomi Wise." The marker stated that the stone had been set in 1968 by a group connected to the Randolph County Historical Society. How exactly is it that a grave on a hillside in Randolph County, West Virginia, ends up with the name Naomi Wise chiseled in granite
By examining and understanding the actual processes through which the Naomi Wise case has been disseminated in West Virginia, I began to under- stand the irrelevance of factual origins as they relate to folk song variants and legends. The facts have become extraneous to the role that the story plays in the minds of people. Claims to Naomi and the song about her death are a projection of a basic human need to give recognition to innocents and brutes, to reaffirm social stratification (the lofty, the lowly; the dominant, the submissive), and to claim local ownership of an event of regional importance as commemorated through song.
Fig. 2. Leroy Wingficld in 1992. Photo by Gerald Nilnes
My interest in Naomi Wise began 15 years ago when Leroy Wingfield (born 1906), a resident of Randolph County, West Virginia, mentioned to me that the poor little girl of ballad fame had actually been drowned in Cheat River. I made a mental note but brushed off the possibility as a bit of misinformation.
Fig. 3. Robert Channel, circa 1960. Exact date and photographer unknown.
In 1992, when a friend told me of the actual marked grave, I found the mystery irresistible. Subsequently, Leroy Wingfield told me that back during the Depression he was helping his father-in-law cut timber on family property near the Cheat River when he noticed some roses growing in a clump in the woods in a peculiar place. On closer inspection, he could make out what appeared to be a grave site.
Being curious, he asked local grist miller "Old Man" Robert Channel who was buried there. Channel told Wingfield some startling news: "That lassie was kinfolks to you" - in fact, his mother's half-sister. Wingfield explained to me in an interview: Well, that made me have a little bit of interest, so I said, "How come?" And he told me he remembered when there was quite a lot of excitement when they found her body up there along the [Cheat] river and he said they made ... a ... they had this mill down there, up there, a saw mill and a grist mill together. He said they took the boards and made her a grave ... a coffin. And he said, "I was there/'7 "Old Man" Robert Channel told Wingfield he had helped pull the drowned girl out of the millrace and bury her on the hill above the river. It was then that Leroy Wingfield began to suspect that the dead girl was Naomi Wise of ballad fame. He had learned the ballad as a young man, and he believed that the Randolph County named in the song placed the incident in this neighbor- hood. He now was led to believe that not only was this dead girl Naomi Wise but also that the young woman made famous by the ballad was his own aunt For years Wingfield considered the circumstances of the tragedy. Some- how he had learned that North Carolina claimed Naomi Wise, but he was convinced from the local tradition that she was really buried on the hillside above the Cheat River. In 1967, Wingfield heard that Charles Chapman and his wife Odie were documenting cemeteries and graves in the county. He walked into the Southern States farm supply store in Elkins, where Chapman worked, and asked if he might be interested in a single grave to add to his list. Chapman said he was, if there was some proof as to who was buried there. Wingfield replied that it was his mother's half-sister, Naomi Wise of ballad fame. The Chapmans, with Leroy's help, set about to prove the identity of the person in the grave by locating and talking to the oldest residents of the area. One of their first discoveries was that a man named Randolph Wise had lived in an old log house near the grave in the right time period to correspond to the mysterious death and burial. Local sources further indicated that Wise was the foster father of Naomi. The solitary grave is only a hundred yards from a place known locally as Allender's Spring, teasingly similar to "Adams's Spring," the lovers' rendezvous in the original ballad.
As word of the Chapmans' search spread through the community, other people came forward with information. The Chapmans were told that Naomi was not buried in the public cemetery on account of her being pregnant out of wedlock. Although foul play was suspected in most accounts, there was no legal action taken to bring anyone to justice, perhaps affirming the girl's lowly station in society. "Old Man" Channel's recollection of Leroy Wingfield's familial connec- tion to the dead girl found in Cheat River has validity. A woman named Caroline Elza, Wingfield's maternal grandmother born circa 1838, was the mother of a girl who died mysteriously.8 Local tradition had it that one of several children born to Elza out of wedlock, a "woods colt" in local parlance, was called Naomi. The Chapmans further gathered that Naomi was raised by Randolph Wise. Wise's Confeder- ate Civil War record verifies his existence. The Wise residence is also con- firmed through Randolph County courthouse records (remnants of the house were still standing when I visited the site in 1992).
Fig. 4. Remnants of Randolph Wise house, 1992. Photo by Gerald Milnes
More local information obtained by the Çhapmans indicated that a man named John Lewis, the suspected murderer of ballad fame, was from Scranton, Pennsylvania. After the girl's death he was then thought to have "left the country" to work for the Cherry River Boom and Lumber Company in Nicholas County, West Virginia. Other oral traditions revealed that he was fatally injured in a logging accident at Cheat Bridge, about 30 miles upstream from the grave, and he was thought to have confessed the murder to a "Rev- erend Grennels" of Elkins, West Virginia, on his deathbed.[9]
At this point, the Chapmans and Wingfield believed they had solved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the identity of the poor soul in the lonesome grave. The Chapmans are lifelong residents of Randolph County, West Virginia, and they related well to the informants, their neighbors, who supplied the oral information. No doubt their position in the community and that affinity helped them in their efforts and in all probability added to the conclusions they drew. Based on all of this collaborating information from oral sources, the Randolph County Historical Society, then headed by the Chapmans, determined to mark the grave. With the help of a local church youth group, they built a gated enclosure around the grave and installed a marker:
"NAOMI WISE KILLED IN THE LATE 1870'S."[10]
The Randolph County, West Virginia, incident is now believed to have occurred between the late 1870s and late 1880s. While there is no documen- tary proof that a John (or even Jonathan) Lewis ever resided near Cheat River, there was a John Kerns, born in 1860 and active in Randolph County during the late 1880s, who in most other details fits the description of the villainous murderer the Chapmans learned about through local oral tradition, the ill-famed Pennsylvania logger who supposedly confessed on his deathbed. This John Kerns was involved with many of the young women of the area during the mid-to-late 1880s. He may have been involved with a young woman named Ruhama, who was married at the age of 15 or 16 to a David Nelson, in 1880. This Ruhama lived in the area and was born in 1864, a daughter of the same Caroline Elza mentioned above. She died of "unknown cause" on November 21, 1887. If Kerns was involved with Ruhama's death, he is further indicted as a villain-type by having had four "bastardy" cases brought against him in the late 1880s by neighborhood women.11 John Kerns frequented the area, was a veritable Olympic-class seducer of women, but seems to have over-played his hand. A "bastardy" suit was filed against Kerns on November 26, 1887, for a child born on October 4, 1887. Another case was filed against him on No- vember 28, 1887, by a different woman for a child born on June 15, 1886. Kerns' world seems to have been crashing around him just days after Ruhama's death. In a confusing twist, the record shows that Kerns obtained a license to marry a woman named "Ruanna" Nelson on November 25, 1887. Records show this to be a different person from the "Ruhama" Nelson who died four days before on November 21. Kerns' marriage license was applied for one day before one of the bastardy suits was filed.12 The death of Ruhama Nelson and Kerns' plans to marry seem to have precipitated the rash of bas- tardy suits from his other girlfriends. John Kerns' love life is confusing at best, with more angles and sides than the standard troublesome love triangle. But we do know for sure that Ruhama Nelson, resident of the locale and daughter of Caroline Elza, died of PAGE 383 - APPALJ
"unknown cause" on November 21, 1887, in the midst of neighborhood scan- dal. Good evidence has the oldest local source saying she was pulled out of a mill race, with foul play suspected. According to "Old Man" Robert Channel, no one was tried for murder in the case, despite strong suspicion. AH of the details surrounding this death point to Ruhama Nelson as the unfortunate soul found along Cheat River and buried in the solitary grave. If she was actually linked to the family living nearest the grave, the family of Randolph Wise, this link is only made through traditional oral information. If Wise was involved, statistics would put this chance occurrence at long odds, making this the most baffling coincidence of the whole affair. About 36 years after the 1887 death of Ruhama Nelson, the song about Omie Wise became widely accessible through commercial 78 rpm recordings. Carson J. Robison composed an original text and tune, based on the Naomi Wise narrative theme. Other singers recorded Robison's version, as the coun- try music recording industry took off in the 1920s.
Two basic Naomi Wise song types became common in wide oral circula- tion and have been published in numerous sources. One was based on the Mary Woody narrative theme that spread through the Braxton Craven pam- phlet.13 The other, which Carson Robison claims to have penned, although thematically true to the incident, introduces new words and music. Both songs are found in West Virginia oral circulation. The Robison text includes the verse "in Randolph County now her body lies," probably causing the confusion that helped instigate the Randolph County, West Virginia claim.[14] Commercial recordings were advancing both texts. Al Craver (whose real name was Marion Slaughter, but he used at least 48 aliases including Vernon Dalhart) recorded a version based on the Robison song in 1926 (Columbia 15053). A similar version was released by Paul Mile's Red Fox Chasers in 1929 (Gennet 6945). There was a jazzed up, ragtime version recorded by "Aunt Idy" Harper with the Coon Creek Girls (Vocalion 04354). Between those recordings in 1927, G.B. Grayson released "Ommie Wise" (Victor 21625) with solo fiddle, based on the older Craven text To me it is easily the most gripping early commercial rendering of the song. Another version based on the Craven text was released by Clarence "Tom" Ashley with banjo in 1929 (Columbia 15522). The Grayson and Ashley tune melodies, both of folk origin, far surpass the commonplace music heard behind the versions that are based on the Robison text A spine-tingling 1973 solo performance by Maggie Hammons Parker (Library of Congress L-65) is based on the older text but with an unusual variation on the usual "minor" folk tune. The more standard tune (of folk origin) is heard on more recent performances by Doc Watson (Vanguard VRS 9152) and Roscoe Holcomb (Folkways FA 2368). I collected another West Virginia tune and text similar to Parker's from Holley Hundley (Augusta AHR 009). The song has been widely recorded in recent years by other traditional singers and folk revival- ists. Variants of the song collected in West Virginia include the important verse stating "in Randolph County now her body lies/' The following version, collected from Mrs. Amanda Ellen Eddy of Rivesville, West Virginia, also incorporates the Cheat River as well as the murderer's deathbed confession:
1 Oh come all you young people, a story I will tell
About a maid they called Naomi Wise.
Her face was fair and handsome: She was loved by everyone; In Randolph County now her body lies. 2 They say she had a lover, young Lewis was his name; Each evening he would have her by his side; She learned to love and trust him and she believed his word; He told her she was doomed to be his bride. 3 One summer night he met her and took her for a ride; She thought that she was going to be wed. They came down old Cheat River, and so the story goes, "You have met your doom," these words the villain said. 4 She begged him just to spare her; the villain only laughed. They say he was heartless to the core. In the stream he threw her, below the old mill dam, And sweet Naomi's smile was seen no more. 5 Next day they found her body, floating down the stream, And all the folks for miles around did cry. Young Lewis left the country; they brought him back again, But could not prove that he caused her to die. 6 They say that on his deathbed young Lewis did confess; He said that he had killed Naomi Wise. So now we know her spirit still lingers round the place To save some girl from some villain's lies. 7 Young people, oh take warning and listen while I say, You must take care before it is too late. Don't listen to the story some villain tongue may tell, Or you are sure to meet Naomi's fate.15 Eddy's text indicates a variant similar to the other widespread versions that stem from the Robison commercial recording. But by the time Eddy's text was collected and published in 1957, it had gained words that subscribed to the West Virginia incident16 • • • About ten years after the tale of Omie Wise reentered oral tradition by way of commercial recordings, a young woodsman named Leroy Wingfield PAGE 385 - APPALJ
deduced that little Omie Wise was the young woman buried on the banks of Cheat River. In my interview with him, Wingfield acknowledged that he both liked and sang the song and had often tried to find the infamous spot where the murder took place: What buffled [sic] me was I could never find where the grist mill was up along the river. I'd inquire clear up to the stone bridge, you know. And here it was, well, I was raised right a half a mile or a mile from it The fact that Wingfield had assumed the murder took place near his home suggests that he was familiar with a version of the ballad which specified that "in Randolph County now her body lies." One day, while working a team of horses, Wingfield spied a rose bush in an unlikely place, and inquiring about the suspected grave, produced to his satisfaction an eyewitness to a young girl being pulled out of the Cheat River in Randolph County, West Virginia. Immediately the song, the murder, the grave, the place, and the participants all came sensibly together in his mind and somehow validated his feeling of living in history - the folk process revealed! An actual event in 1808 entered oral tradition, a text was published (Woody, 1817) and a pamphlet published (Craven, 1824), distributed, and republished numerous times. Over 100 years later, a song version of the story was commercially recorded several times by various artists and reen- tered oral tradition in West Virginia. At this stage in the process, the "Deep River" became the "Cheat River" (among other changes). The song was col- lected and deemed a West Virginia folk song in 1941 by Mary Boette. Boette, who made a field recording of Hazel Karickhoff singing her version of the song, published it in 1971, a version which in turn reentered oral tradition by way of the Chapmans, who read the account in Boette's book, Singa Hipsy Doodle and Other Folksongs of West Virginia, and told Leroy Wingfield about it.17 From here the story got to Jim Comstock, the celebrated newspa- per editor and publisher of The West Virginia Hillbilly, who put the new myth into the West Virginia Songbag and the West Virginia Heritage Ency- clopedia (1974, 1976), consecrating Naomi Wise as a "bonafide" West Virgin- ian.18 The similarities of the two events help explain who might be buried in that West Virginia grave. Deep River is the actual place of the Naomi Wise murder and the name of the river in many variants of the song, but the Deep River easily became a deep river named Cheat in the rhyming verse. One West Virginia informant sang a fragment of the song for me which places the murderer at the Cheat River: "He's down at the Cheat River, so I understand, they've got him in prison for killing a man."19 In most variations, Naomi promises to meet John Lewis at "Adams's Spring"; her supposed West Vir- ginia grave is only about 100 yards from a place known locally as Allender's Spring. This is only another 100 yards from the old mill race where she was reportedly found and very close also to the homestead of a man named PAGE 386 ■ SUMMER 1995
Randolph Wise, who could have lent his surname to her as a foster child. Although it may be impossible to know for certain, the traditional and circumstantial evidence points to the fact that Ruhama Nelson, lover of back- woods Casanova John Kerns, was the pregnant woman who died of unknown causes and was found in a mill race along Cheat River. Even her name, pro- nounced Ruham/ in local dialect, is similar to Naomi.20 She may well be the West Virginia Omie Wise, the woman whom Robert Channel, the oldest local first-hand source, helped pull out of the mill race. Through the folk process, the historical reality evolved and changed to concur with the existent text of the recorded song or possibly with a variant in oral tradition. The mystery in Randolph County, West Virginia, was ap- proached by members of the Randolph County Historical Society using the unscientific method of starting with the result (the song) and attempting to find evidence to support the song's narrative. The North Carolina ballad narrative is applied to what seems a strikingly similar incident in West Virginia. But many of the similarities were collected from an oral tradition that had been processed and filtered through minds that sought a certain conclusion. That is, the West Virginia bearers of the tale started with the conclusion of the song text and went looking for evi- dence that supported that text rather than starting with a more basic ques- tion: who is buried in a certain solitary grave on a hillside above the Cheat River? • • • People need their folk heroes, heroines, and villains, and poor little Naomi was ripe for the claiming. In early texts, she quickly became a beauti- ful trusting girl who was violated and murdered by a dark and sinister ne'er- do-well. She was viewed as a folk heroine of noted beauty and innocence, despite living in an age when her actual deeds were beyond the social choices available to women. Accordingly, she was immortalized through folk song and narrative. Oral traditions have meaning and purpose. In this case a psychological need and affirmation of values is projected in the form of a folk song that is not true to historical fact. Surprising similarities to the original event, as chronicled in the early texts, induces the historical revision that is used to justify the claim. Along with a psychological need to create and adopt such heroines, I detect in my West Virginia informants and in published sources a sense of native pride bolstered by provincial ownership. Knowing of, or in Wingfield's case being blood-related to, the immortalized heroine of a back-country trag- edy provides the motive to find a way to claim ownership. Local historians commemorate the event, the memory, and the rights by placing a stone wall around the spot where the old rose bush has about expired. Accounts are published describing how this girl belongs to West Virginia, despite the PAGE 387 - APPALJ
claims of other states. Occasionally someone stumbles onto the grave, reads the historical marker there, and the "true facts" of the case get reaffirmed in a local newspaper or other publication.21 Fig. 5. The walled grave site of the West Virginia Naomi Wise. Photo 1992 by Gerald Milnes The Naomi Wise story has bounced in and out of the written record, popular culture, recorded and unrecorded song, oral story and legend, re- gional traditions, racial groups, and geographies for 185 years. No doubt it will continue. The "murdered girl" motif will crop up again in another time and another place. Naomi's song may get recycled yet again. Through it all, may the poor little victims, whoever they are, rest in peace. NOTES 1. Fragment verse from Randolph County, West Virginia, from Thelma Andrews, tape- recorded interview by G. Milnes, May 23, 1993, Augusta Collection, Davis and Elkins College, Elkins, W.Va. 2. The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, ed. Newman Ivey White (Durham: Duke University Press, 1952-64), Vol. 2, p. 690. 3. Before their deaths, D.K. Wilgus and Wayland Hand were collaborating on an article using the Naomi Wise story to indicate how pre-existing narrative theme tends to PAGE 388 - SUMMER 1995
overwhelm historical fact. They brought the Woody document to light, having located it in the Special Collections department of the UCLA Research Library. Their efforts prompted my documentation of this West Virginia account 4. Craven's text of "Poor Naomi," first reprinted by The Randleton News, Randleton, North Carolina. See Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Vol. 2, pp. 692-3. Craven's text is published in The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World, ed. Albert Friedman (New York: Viking Press, 1966), along with a tune transcribed from Victor 21625 (1927). 5. See Mattie Taylor, "Conversations With Aunt Harriet" in The Kentucky Folk-Lore and Poetry Magazine, October 1928, p. 4. 6. See H.M. Beiden, ed., The University of Missouri Studies, 15:1 (Jan. 1, 1940), pp. 3224; also Vance Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Vol. II, 1946, revised by University of Missouri, 1980. For a thorough discussion of early regional variants, see Beiden (above) and Malcomb Laws, Native American Balladry (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1964). 7. Leroy Wingfield, tape-recorded interview by G. Milnes, May 28, 1992, Augusta Collection, Davis and Elkins College, Elkins, W.Va. 8. Randolph County, West Virginia, Courthouse records. 9. This information was collected from oral tradition by the Chapmans, but there are also confession precedents in the North Carolina accounts. See The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Vol. 2, p. 693. 10. The Chapmans graciously turned over to me a folder of written notes they had made about their conversations with area residents. 11. Randolph County, West Virginia, Courthouse records. 12. Randolph County, West Virginia, Courthouse records. 13. See recording, "Little Omie," in The Mammons Family: A Study of a West Virginia Family's Traditions, ed. Alan Jabbour (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1973) [contains two recordings with descriptive booklet]. A similar version I collected from Fayette County, West Virginia, places the incident in that region. See Folksongs and Ballads, Vol. 3, Augusta Heritage Recordings 009. I collected another variant from McDowell County, West Virginia, that has Lewis being captured in "old Mt. Airy town." See Dock Scott, War, West Virginia, April 29, 1994, Augusta Collection, Davis and Elkins College, Elkins, W.Va. 14. I collected a "ballet," or written copy of the song, from Mrs. Howard Louk, Huttonsville, West Virginia, which is similar to the Robison text, including the standard line, "In Randolph County now her body lies." 15. West Virginia Folklore, Vol. 7 No. 4 (Summer 1957), 66-7. 16. From Amanda Ellen Eddy, Rivesville, West Virginia, published in West Virginia Folklore, Vol. 7 No. 4 (Summer 1957). This same issue published "Little Loney," from a Mrs. Howard Glasscock of Fairmont, West Virginia, which is a version based on the older Craven text from North Carolina. 17. Mary Boette, Singa Hipsy Doodle and Other Folk Songs of West Virginia (Parsons, W.Va.: McClain Printing, 1971), p. 129. 18. See Jim Comstock, West Virginia Songbag (Richwood, W.Va., 1974), pp. 449-501, and The West Virginia Encyclopedia (Richwood, W.Va., 1976), Vol. 23, 5142. These and other West Virginia references (notes 15-17 above) perhaps tell us more about nativism affecting regional literature than about historic incidents commemorated through folk song. 19. Milla Hammons, tape-recorded song fragment, "Omie Wise," August 31, 1993, Augusta Collection, Davis and Elkins College, Elkins, W.Va. 20. In the local dialect, names ending in a are pronounced as though they ended ie. Thus Ruhama becomes Ruhami and Naoma becomes Naomi, or they may be shortened to Amie and Omie. 21. See Discovery Rekindles Murder Mystery: Ballad of Naomi Wise Written to Chronicle the Murder," Inter-Mountain, Elkins, West Virginia, 14 Sept. 1992, and "Ballad of Naomi Wise Filled With Local Lore," in The Allegheny [W.Va.] Journal, Aug. 9, 1973.