Rosie Neil
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-05-18

Day 63 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series  (folksongindex.com)

Sandburg writes: "In the first Oklahoma land rush in the late 'Eighties, was a woman who rode a wild horse and  staked out a claim worth having. In the years that came she raised corn, broom corn, alfalfa, soy  beans and three daughters who had freckle faces, hair of a dark gold corn silk, and sweet dispositions. Time passed. 

"The family moved. New York was their home, the address was on Eighty-eighth Street, and the number in the phone book. They were now far from Oklahoma.  Yet there came one cold rainy night to their fireside, their steam radiator, a young man who had  raised corn, broom corn, alfalfa, and soy beans in Kansas, the next state to Oklahoma and standing on the same big prairie. 

"They sang on that cold rainy night, those people around the steam radiator.  And one of the songs was Rosie Nell (or Rosie Neil). "It was a comfort to us in those days of the first Oklahoma  land rush," said the woman who rode a wild horse to stake out a claim."