Margot Theis Raven - Happy Birthday to You!. The Mystery Behind the Most Famous Song in the World

Happy Birthday to You!

The M YSTERY B EHIND the

M OST F AMOUS S ONG in the W ORLD

B Y M ARGOT T HEIS R AVEN P AINTINGS BY C HRIS S OENTPIET

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is indebted to the following people and organizations for their invaluable help and research material: The Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky; The Jefferson County School System Board of Education, Louisville, Kentucky; The Speed Art Museum, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky; The Louisville (Kentucky) Free Public Library, Main Branch; Robert French, founder of the Louisville Academy of Music, Louisville, Kentucky; The Gottesman Libraries, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY; Archives of the Association of Childhood Education International, University of Maryland Libraries, College Park, MD; Dr. Michael Beckerman, Professor and Chair of Music, New York University, New York, NY; researchers Joan Rapp, G. K. Raven, and Gail Petri, Education Resource Specialist, Library of Congress American Memory Learning Page, Washington, D.C. Deep thanks as well to my editor, Aimee Jackson, and to special editor, Judy Gitenstein, who let the story sing its own song.

Text Copyright 2008 Margot Theis Raven

Illustration Copyright 2008 Chris Soentpiet

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief
excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to:

Sleeping Beer Press

310 North Main Street, Suite 300

Chelsea, MI 48118

www.sleepingbearpress.com

2008 Sleeping Bear Press is an imprint of Gale.

Printed and bound in China.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Raven, Margot Theis.

Happy birthday to you! / written by Margot Theis Raven ; illustrated

by Chris K. Soentpiet.

p. cm.

Summary: In 1889 Patty and Mildred Hill, two Kentucky sisters, wrote the words and composed the melody of Good Morning to All for their kindergarten students. They later changed the words and the song is today known as the happy birthday songProvided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-58536-169-4

1. Hill, Mildred J., 1859-1916. Happy birthday to youJuvenile literature. 2. Hill, Patty Smith,

1868-1946Juvenile literature. I. Soentpiet, Chris K. ill II. Title.

ML3930.H56.R38 2008

782.42158dc22 2007037438

To my own dear sisters, Paula and Nancy.

And to these happiest of (birth)days: 5/25, 3/14, 8/27, and 8/27!

I celebrate your lives.

M. T. R.

To our son, CJHappy Birthday and welcome to the world!

Your mommy and daddy will always love you.

C. S.

I magine having a birthday with no one singing the song Happy Birthday to You. Before the 1900s thats exactly the way things were. You might have had presents, cake, candles, and cards, but there was no Happy Birthday song to sing, because it had not yet been written.

Then once upon a happy day the famous song was born in a childrens garden.

Impossible, you say? Grow a song in a garden? Not impossible at all for a most unusual family that lived in a most unusual home at the time of the Civil War....

One long-ago morning near Louisville, when gas lamps lit rooms and mules pulled street cars, six-yearold Patty Hill gazed in wonder at the tiny bundle of baby and blanket nestled in Mamas arms.

Meet your little sister, Mama smiled at her little girl with golden-red curls, and at the baby born with the morning, as new to the day as the sun rising to the childrens tower-playroom above.

It was a magical place, the tower room overlooking Bellewood, the familys Kentucky home. The tower had eight sides, one for each member of William and Martha Hills growing family: Papa, Mama, Mildred, Mary, Wallace, Patty, Archibald, and now baby Jessica!

Reverend Hill had built the chapel tower when he founded Bellewood, his school to instruct young women of the South. He believed, most unusually for steamboat days, an educated woman need not marry to have a home.

It was Martha Hill who filled the playroom with boards, boxes, bricks, and barrels for her children to build big dreams. At a time when children were made to work in factories, Martha believed that play was a childs most important work, the way to discover the world.

All day long Martha sang helpful little songs to keep learning and tasks fun, even tasks not so fun! When washing Pattys long curls in a tub, Mama sang:

down, down, down, daughter, down you gointo the water...

Soon Mildred, like Mama, made up little melodies and Patty wrote simple poems.

Then one sad day in 1874, not even Mamas songs could dry the childrens tears as they said goodbye to Pee Wee, their beloved pony. Pee Wee was off to a new home because the Hill family was leaving Bellewood forever. Reverend Hill was to become president of a college in faraway Missouri.

Trading memories for new dreams, Martha gently explained to the children as Pee Wees train pulled away.

Hopes sprouted as high as cornfields in Missouri, until Reverend Hills health grew frail. One Christmas day the children gave him a book with a ring of stars on a blue cover. How the stars light the world! How will you light the world when grown? he asked.

Reverend Hill died too soon to know. Seven heavy hearts returned to Kentucky as lost as coal smoke at night.

Welcome is the best dish you can serve at the table, Martha sighed, resettling in Louisville in 1878. Like a song without notes, life and the cupboards were empty without Papa.

Martha was nearly penniless. She took in boarders. Blessedly, the children could now finish school.