I Cannot Call Her Mother (The Marriage Rite is Over; The Stepmother)

DESCRIPTION: "The marriage rite is over," and the children have seen their father take a new wife. Their mother's picture is replaced by the pretty new girl's. The child "could not call her mother." She calls herself an orphan; "God gave us but one mother."
AUTHOR: Henry Harrison
EARLIEST DATE: 1855 (date of composition)
KEYWORDS: family marriage mother father children stepmother orphan
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Randolph 726, "The Stepmother" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Rorrer-RamblingBlues-LifeAndSongsOfCharliePoole, p. 79, "I Cannot Call Her Mother" (1 text)
Huntington-SongsTheWhalemenSang, pp. 298-299, "I Can Not Call Her Mother" (1 text, 1 tune)
Huntington-TheGam-MoreSongsWhalemenSang, pp. 246-247, "The Stepmother" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #956, p. 65, "I Cannot Call Her Mother" (1 reference)
Dime-Song-Book #6, p. 33, "I can not call her Mother" (1 text)
cf. Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan, p. 482, "The Stepmother" (source notes only)
ADDITIONAL: Fred W. Allsopp, Folklore of Romantic Arkansas, Volume II (1931), pp. 201-202, "(The Stepmother)" (1 short text)
John Burke, _Burke's Christmas Songster 1920_, self-published, 1918 (PDF available on the Memorial University of Newfoundland site), p. 19, "I Cannot Call Her Mother" (1 text)
ST R726 (Partial)
Roud #2091
RECORDINGS:
Bradley Kincaid, "I Cannot Call Her Mother" (Supertone 9565, 1929; Champion 15968, 1930 [as Dan Hughey])
[Roy Harvey and the] North Carolina Ramblers "I Cannot Call Her Mother" (Silvertone 5181 [as The Three Kentucky Serenaders], 1927; Supertone 9246/Silvertone 8147, 1928)
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "I Cannot Call Her Mother" (Columbia 15307-D, 1928)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Blind Child" (theme)
File: R726

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