Songs and Lore

Over the years, the story of the Meeks murder was recorded in dozens of songs and poems which circulated throughout the state.  Many of the songs were collected in the Ozarks, where Nellie lived with her grandmother after the trial.   Most of the songs were very maudlin and sentimental, and some were more accurate than others.  

    In 1948 Vance Randolph collected and edited information on the folksongs for the State Historical Society of Missouri.  The following excerpts are from his research:

   "This piece (see photo) was once well known in the Ozark country.  I heard it sung by a blind pencil-peddler in Joplin, Mo., about 1913.   Many people have told me that the song was sung by Nellie Meeks herself, as she traveled about with a carnival company in the late '90's.  Mrs. Nora Page Irwin, Galena, Mo., who says that she and Nellie Meeks were cousins, denies that Nellie ever had anything to do with carnivals (Springfield, Mo., News, April 1, 1941). 'Nellie lived with the grandmother Page until she was sixteen,' says Mrs. Irwin, 'and then she married Albert Spray. When she was eighteen she gave birth to a baby and died."

   "A man named Childers, near Farmington, Ark., tells me that Gus Meeks' brother George, a blind singer with a hand-organ, used to follow the county fairs and picnics in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.  This Meeks sold a little paper-back songbook for ten cents; one of the songs in the book was "The Meeks Murder." George Meeks always claimed to have written this song himself, ,and always sang it with tears running down his cheeks.  There is some mention of George Meeks, and a photograph of him, in an account of the crime called 'Bodies Under the Straw' written from Sheriff James A. Niblo's diary (Master Detective Magazine, July 1937, pp. 16-21, 51-54.

   "The following was sung by Mr. Clyde Weems, Cardin, Oklahoma, July 10, 1927.  Mr. Weems learned the song at Mount Vernon, Mo., in 1915.

We lived upon the Taylor's farm
Not many miles from town,
One night while we was all asleep
The Taylor boys come down.

They wanted to take my papa away,
My mamma answered no,
We could not be left here alone,
But the family all could go.

We got into the wagon then,
An' rode to Jenkins Hill
An' all at once we knew not why
But the team was standin' still.

They murdered my mamma an' papa too,
An' knocked baby in the head,
They murdered my brothers an' sisters four
An' left me there as dead.

An' now my little song you've heard,
An' the rest you all know well,
I'm left an' orphaned here alone
In this wide world to dwell.

I want you all to pray for me,
That I may meet them there
In heaven above where all is love,
There'll be no murderin' there.