 The wedding of Christy Huddleston has been a long-anticipated event, and nothing short of authentic would do. Executive Producer Tom Blomquist talked to me recently about the details that went into making the wedding of Christy Huddleston and Dr. Neil MacNeill everything that the fans would expect.
The wedding attire Before the miniseries aired, PAX distributed a publicity piece that focused on Christy's wedding gown and about costume designer, Kate Healey, who designed a beautiful, vintage dress, circa 1912 for Christy. The entire article was featured at About.com and can be read here.
The wedding ceremony Tom Blomquist insisted that the wedding ceremony performed by Dr. Ferrand be as authentic as possible and so they turned to an early 1900's Presbyterian book of sermons to locate an appropriate version that could be adapted for the wedding. Here in PDF format is a copy of the actual authentic Presbyterian wedding ceremony that they used as the basis for the wedding in the mini-series. To view this, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0, which can be downloaded here for free if needed.
 The music Tom reports that the wedding music was composed by Ron Ramin except the song for Christy's dance with Neil. Ramin had the great idea of using a popular folk song of the day, "Sweet Betsy From Pike". It made a perfect, innocent melody for their waltz, which also lent itself to the soaring strings that Ron wanted to
finish the flashback part of the movie before taking back to elderly Christy in the day.
A search on the internet turned up this information about the song: "Sung to the tune of the tragic English ballad, 'Villikens and His
Dinah,' 'Sweet Betsy from Pike' grew up along the overland trail to California and became the classic ballad expression of the overland trail experience."
Tom Blomquist also added "'Sweet Betsy From Pike' has been an enduring song, too. I remember singing it in music class in grade school! And for those who might be interested, the lyrics are hilarious -- just the sort of song Dr. MacNeill might ask the band to play!"
|
Sweet Betsy From Pike
Folk Song, c. 1870
Oh don't you remember sweet Betsy from Pike,
Who crossed the wide prairie with her lover Ike,
With two yoke of oxen, a big yellow dog,
A tall Shangai rooster, and one spotted hog?
CHORUS:
Singing dang fol dee dido,
Singing dang fol dee day.
One evening quite early they camped on the Platte.
'Twas near by the road on a green shady flat.
Where Betsy, sore-footed, lay down to repose --
With wonder Ike gazed on that Pike County rose.
The Shanghai ran off, and their cattle all died;
That morning the last piece of bacon was fried;
Poor Ike was discouraged and Betsy got mad,
The dog drooped his tail and looked wondrously sad.
They stopped at Salt Lake to inquire of the way,
Where Brigham declared that sweet Betsy should stay;
But Betsy got frightened and ran like a deer
While Brigham stood pawing the ground like a steer.
They soon reached the desert where Betsy gave out,
And down in the sand she lay rolling about;
While Ike, half distracted, looked on with surprise,
Saying, "Betsy, get up, you'll get sand in your eyes."
Sweet Betsy got up in a great deal of pain,
Declared she'd go back to Pike County again;
But Ike gave a sigh and they fondly embraced,
And they traveled along with his arm round her waist.
The Injuns came down in a wild yelling horde,
And Betsy was scared they would scalp her adored;
Behind the front wagon wheel Betsy did crawl,
And there fought the Injuns with musket and ball.
They suddenly stopped on a very high hill,
With wonder looked down upon old Placerville;
Ike sighed when he said, and he cast his eyes down,
"Sweet Betsy, my darling, we've got to Hangtown."
Long Ike and Sweet Betsy attended a dance;
Ike wore a pair of his Pike County pants;
Sweet Betsy was dressed up in ribbons and rings;
Says Ike, "You're an angel, but where are your wings?"
'Twas out on the prairie one bright starry night,
They broke out the whiskey and Betsy got tight,
She sang and she howled and she danced o'er the plain,
And showed her bare legs to the whole wagon train.
The terrible desert was burning and bare,
And Isaac he shrank from the death lurkin' there,
"Dear old Pike County, I'll come back to you."
Says Betsy, "You'll go by yourself if you do."
They swam wild rivers and climbed the tall peaks,
And camped on the prairies for weeks upon weeks,
Starvation and cholera, hard work and slaughter,
They reached Californy, spite of hell and high water.
A miner said, "Betsy, will you dance with me?"
"I will, you old hoss, if you don't make too free.
But don't dance me hard, do you want to know why?
Doggone ye, I'm chock full of strong alkali."
Long Ike and Sweet Betsy got married, of course,
But Ike, getting jealous, obtained a divorce,
While Betsy, well satisfied, said with a shout,
"Goodbye, you big lummox, I'm glad you backed out!"
[There are many different versions of these lyrics. This set is from The Western Women's
Reader, edited by Lillian Schlissel and Catherine Lavender (New
York: Harper Perennial, 2000).]
|
|
