BEREA WALTZ

This collection documents the history of the Thornberry family string band from Henderson County, Kentucky over a period extending from the late 1800s to the mid-1970s. The original members consisted of Thomas and Gertrude Thornberry and their six children including son, Halbert, who compiled this collection.



The collection consists of six audiocassettes of recordings made from 1962-1976, mostly of the Thornberry-Kentucky Farm-Home String Band at family gatherings in Henderson County, Kentucky and Urbana, Illinois. Additional recorded material includes brief portions of a fiddle contest in Morganfield, Union County, Kentucky and fiddle tunes by family associate, Ernest Ringo of Shelbyville, Illinois. The collection also includes Thornberry family biographical information, family and community photographs, booklets, and newspaper articles documenting turn of the 19th century social life in the Henderson County communities of Poole, Dixie, and Columbia. The collection also contains three hand written musical scores: two waltzes by Halbert Thornberry, and one waltz entitled "Berea Waltz" by an "F. Turpin" (accompanied by correspondence about the tune's Berea, Kentucky origins).