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Through the years, as a collector and singer of folksongs,
I had discovered many different versions of that classic of the Great
Plains, “Little Old Sod Shanty on the Claim.” I knew that this
popular standard was sung from Oklahoma to Alberta, but somehow I never
had located a rendition specifically identified with my home state of
North Dakota.
So finally did something about it. I had been working for some weeks in
Bowman County, the southwestern-most county in the state, on an architectural
survey for the state historical society. We were delighted to find there
several sod houses in fair to good state of preservation. One of them
was inhabited at least into the 1960s, and another was still the home
of an admirable Bowman County woman.
That set me thinking. How was it that when other people in the country
were replacing their sod houses and tarpaper shanties with new wood-frame
dwellings, these people elected to keep their soddies? They stuccoed over
the sod walls, put on shake roofs, laid down wood floors, and stayed put.
Economy probably was part of the story, but I suspect only part. A good
sod house, with its insulating qualities, made good sense in this part
of the plains. Without even knowing them, I came to admire those stubborn
and prudent folk who persevered with sod.
In fact, I took the old folksong and re-worked it to celebrate these folk
and their soddies. The people in my new song decline to join the building
boom. Instead of building a new frame house, they stucco the old soddy,
re-roof it, floor it, plaster it, and keep it. The chorus goes,
Oh the window-wells are deep, for the walls are two feet thick,
So the howling blizzard cannot do us harm.
In the summertime it’s cooler than the willows by the creek
In our little old sod shanty on the farm.
Then, in the final verse, on a thirty-below blizzard night, all the neighbors
from the new wood frame houses crowd into the old soddy to warm up.
If only I had waited a few months, though, I would have had a North Dakota
version of “Little Old Sod Shanty” presented to me. During a
folksong program at the Carnegie library in Grafton, I sang my new version
of the old song, and a fellow there, Doug Weberg, said, “Do you know
the Walsh County version of that song?”
Sure enough, there was an old settler of Walsh County, Henry A. Ball,
who said he wrote the song! Ball, Weberg says, was a well-known local
character, sometimes called “Bald-headed Ball.” He was a photographer,
and he was the last surviving Civil War veteran in Grafton. Weberg has
written all this up in a nifty biographical booklet.
Ball came to Walsh County in 1883, filed on a claim, and then, he said,
wrote “Little Old Sod Shanty on the Claim.” Later he said he
should have copyrighted it, because other people had stolen it. Unfortunately,
other versions of the song, from states like Kansas and Nebraska, date
from earlier than Ball’s time of residence on the plains.
Ball’s text is a lot like the others. Here and there are some variations
in word choice. One stanza has an unfortunate bit of wording, no doubt
resulting from forgetfulness and substitution. It says, “I wouldn’t
give the freedom that I have out in the West, For the bauble of an eastern
mansion home.” For a soddy song, that sounds a little wooden.
The general scheme of the song, though, is the same. The author is “looking
rather seedy,” holding down his claim in sorry circumstances, burning
twisted hay in his stove, but eventually he’ll get himself a wife
and raise some kids, and the country all around will be prosperous.
Many thanks, Doug. It’s a delight to have this new text of the old
song.
This text and audio may not be copied without securing
prior permission from Plains Folk.
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