Mary Elizabeth Satterfield Cook

LHS '66 

February 10, 1948 - June 25, 2026

Mary Elizabeth Cook, 78, of Huntsville, Alabama, passed away on Thursday, June 25, 2026.

A Celebration of Life will be held at a later date.

Full obituary to follow

Berryhill Funeral Home is assisting the family. 

The Wayback Machine

"Kum ba yah"

The Seekers

One of the songs I still associate with my church camp experiences is "Kum ba yah". Although we also sang it around the campfies in the Boy Scouts, it sounds more appropriate to associate it with the religious experiences of church camp.

"Kum ba yah" ("Come by here") is an African-American spiritual of disputed origin, known to have been sung in the Gullah culture of the islands off South Carolina and Georgia, with ties to enslaved Central Africans. Originally an appeal to God to come to the aid of those in need, the song is thought to have spread from the islands to other Southern states and the North, as well as to other places outside the United States.

The first known recording was made by the folklorist Robert Winslow Gordon in 1926. It features an unaccompanied tenor voice identified only as "H. Wylie" singing in the Gullah language. The piece became a standard campfire song in Scouting and summer camps and enjoyed broader popularity during the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. In American politics, the song title gave rise to the phrase "sing Kumbaya", commonly employed sarcastically to criticize expectations of reconciliation as unrealistic.

The song enjoyed newfound popularity during the American folk music revival of the early to mid-1960s, largely due to Joan Baez's 1962 recording of the song, and became associated with the civil rights movement of that decade. For example, there is a recording of marchers singing the song as "Come By Here" during the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery (Alabama) march for voting rights.

 I just got back from a 7-day/6-night Diamond Tour bus tour to Niagara Falls and Toronto. Nice trip with beautiful weather.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

Delores McBride Kilgore, LHS '66, “Thank you for this article, Tommy! Happy Belated Birthday to you !”