"May I Softly Walk"

In Memory of Eldress Bertha Lindsay (1897-1990)

 

Eldress Bertha Lindsay at Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1972
©photo by Gail Hall

 

"On a cold wintery day in 1972, my wife and I drove to Canterbury Shaker Village for the interview. I had brought along a Nagra tape recorder which Prof. Chianis had loaned to me for recording our interview. Unfortunately I forgot to bring along the headphones so I had to estimate the volume level for the recording. The interview itself went well. After the interview was finished on the first day, Eldress Bertha suggested I come back the next day and she would sing some Shaker hymns and songs for me. I was excited to have this offer and readily agreed.

On that second day, Eldress Bertha sang while Sister Lillian Phelps accompanied her at the piano, even though she was then 95 years old. Sister Lillian only needed to ask Eldress Bertha what key it was in and then she would start playing since she knew them all by heart. Her playing was very slow but expressive. Being in her 80’s and having just lost her sight, Eldress Bertha did an admirable job of singing the Shaker spirituals, most of them from the 1908 Canterbury Shaker hymnal.

I included some of the tunes in my Master's thesis titled:

The Shaker Letteral System: A Practical Approach to Music Notation

Also included with my thesis was a tape with some of the examples I had collected of singing by the Canterbury and Sabbathday Lake Shakers.

I had finished my first substantial work on Shaker music. That was just the beginning of what was to be my long Shaker journey... that has lasted thirty-five years."

--excerpts from "Meeting the Shakers" in "Dream World": Songs, Poems and Stories by Roger Hall (PineTree Press, 2007).

Excerpts of the interviews with Eldress Bertha Lindsay are included on

Celestial Praises -- Music by the Shakers

 

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