Buchanan, Annabel Morris, 1888-

Annabel Morris Buchanan, composer, author, folk music collector, and officer of the National Federation of Music Clubs.

Annabel Morris Buchanan (22 October 1888-6 January 1983), composer, writer, and folklorist, was born in Groesbeck, Tex., the daughter of the Reverend William Caruthers Morris and Anna Virginia Foster. By seven, she was composing songs, writing poems, reading music by sight, and playing the piano for her father's services. At age 15, she won a scholarship to the Landon Conservatory in Dallas and was graduated in 1896 with highest honors in performance on piano and violin and theory and composition. She taught private and college music classes at Halsell College, Okla., 1907-1908, and at Stonewall Jackson College, Abingdon, Va., 1909-1912. She married John Preston Buchanan, a lawyer, writer, and Virginia senator, from Marion, Va., in 1912 and moved to Roseacre, where they had four children.

After moving to Roseacre, Buchanan published numerous pieces of music as well as articles and poetry. She organized a Marion music club in 1923 and became president of the Virginia Federation of Music Clubs in 1927. She began studying folk music and, in 1928, organized the first Virginia State Choral Festival, consisting of traditional folk performances. In 1931, she organized the White Top Folk Festival in an attempt to open traditional folk art to the public. Eleanor Roosevelt attended the festival in 1933, but the festival was abandoned after 1939. For these festivals, Buchanan collected thousands of songs, tunes, dances, games, tales, charms, and sayings from people in the mountain areas of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. She published articles and gave lectures on the festival and the study, collection, and use of folk music. During this time, she also published her only book, Folk Hymns of America .

Upon her husband's death in 1937, Buchanan sold Roseacre and moved to Richmond, Va., with her two youngest children. She taught music theory and composition and folk music at the University of Richmond, 1939-1940; during the summers, at the New England Music Camp, Lake Messalonskee, Oakland, Me., 1938-1940; and Huckleberry Mountain Artists Colony near Hendersonville, N.C., in 1941. She later moved to Harrisonburg, Va., and taught at Madison College from 1944 to 1948. In 1951, Buchanan moved to Paducah, Ky., and continued to write, compose, collect folklore, and organize societies, such as the Southeastern Folklore Society, the American Folklore Society, and the Kentucky Folklore Society. She received honorary life memberships in the Composers-Authors Guild, the Eugene Field and Mark Twain Societies, and in the National Federation of Music Clubs. She was also made an honorary citizen of San Jose California in 1954 when her choral work Song of the Cherubim was premiered at the Montalvo Artists Colony. Later, she became archivist for the folk music collecting project of the National Federation of Music Clubs, where she served until 1963.

[For further information, see Annabel Morris Buchanan: A Profile of Her Contributions to Folklore, thesis by Carolyn Lelear (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1978) and biographical sketches in Who's Who of American, Women (5th ed., 1967), Directory of American Scholars (5th ed., 1968-69), and Dictionary of International Biography (8th ed., 1970).]