Forestyne's Waltz
by Bill Graham
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Kate - MyaMoe 6-String Tenor Ukulele
Steve - 1934 Gibson L-00
Steve - 1934 Gibson L-00
Producer - Jon Neufeld
Track 10
While touring across the country a few years ago to peddle our new Ukalaliens Songbook, and teach folks how to play and sing wherever we could. We stopped in Kansas City, MO to give a workshop and concert at Mark Bentley's Guitar Studios. The nice folks who put us up, David and Yvonne, made a delicious Mexican scramble with fresh cornbread the next morning and after we were finished, Dave pulled out his guitar and Yvonne got her mandolin. They played us a song that their friend Bill Graham had written and our hearts swooned. We loved the song so much that we begged them to sing it another couple of times so we could learn it. Then they sent us off with a copy of the words and the true story behind the song.
As the story goes, Forestyne Marie Loyles (1907-1991) was a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous American frontiersman, Daniel Boone, and a beloved member of the Weston community near Kansas City. Her father had abandoned the family early on to seek fame and fortune as an actor in California, and her mother, embittered by this, warned her daughter off from accepting the advances of men.
The top floor of the nearby historic Mettier Hall in Weston was used as a ballroom for soldiers and wives from nearby Fort Leavenworth. As a pretty young woman, Forestyne looked forward to going to the dance but rather than defy her mother's demands who refused to let loose of her only child, Forestyne sacrificed her dreams in the end and remained single for life.
Fast forward sixty years or so... as Forestyne prepared to move into a local retirement home, the cleaning girl was dusting the furniture when suddenly Forestyne sighed and shared her story of a man who had once asked her to dance. That night the cleaning girl revealed Forestyne's wistful story to her friend, Bill Graham, and he wrote this song.
We were moved by Forestyne's Waltz and have been singing it since that meeting. Tears shine back from the audience as the lyrics hit home from dreams left behind in Forestyne's Waltz.
As the story goes, Forestyne Marie Loyles (1907-1991) was a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the famous American frontiersman, Daniel Boone, and a beloved member of the Weston community near Kansas City. Her father had abandoned the family early on to seek fame and fortune as an actor in California, and her mother, embittered by this, warned her daughter off from accepting the advances of men.
The top floor of the nearby historic Mettier Hall in Weston was used as a ballroom for soldiers and wives from nearby Fort Leavenworth. As a pretty young woman, Forestyne looked forward to going to the dance but rather than defy her mother's demands who refused to let loose of her only child, Forestyne sacrificed her dreams in the end and remained single for life.
Fast forward sixty years or so... as Forestyne prepared to move into a local retirement home, the cleaning girl was dusting the furniture when suddenly Forestyne sighed and shared her story of a man who had once asked her to dance. That night the cleaning girl revealed Forestyne's wistful story to her friend, Bill Graham, and he wrote this song.
We were moved by Forestyne's Waltz and have been singing it since that meeting. Tears shine back from the audience as the lyrics hit home from dreams left behind in Forestyne's Waltz.