1896, Oregon: Old Methodist hymn in Jargon amuses
At an anti-booze convention, there was entertainment of another sort…
…So Chinuk Wawa came in handy!
Image credit: Oregon Historical Society
Toward the end of the Marion County (Oregon) chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union gathering, after the re-election of Mrs. Rebe(c)ka(h) Shinn Parrish Robb (Steele) (1834-1909) as president, the fun started:
This concluded the election of officers and then the president sang a Chinook version of an old Methodist hymn which created much merriment.
— from “The W.C.T.U. Convention”, in the Salem (OR) Daily Capital Journal of April 30, 1896, page 4, columns 3-4
What hymn was that? We keep seeing references to Methodist songs in Jargon in Oregon, possibly inspired by the BC publication of a Methodist hymn book in Chinuk Wawa and Stó:lō Salish…
Mrs. Robb was a pioneer of 1844, arriving young at an early time in the Settler history of the region. So she almost certainly spent most of her life talking very good Jargon.
