Her American Frontier Self

Christine Rosamond Presco married Garth Benton, the cousin of the Regional Artist, Thomas Hart Benton, who painted the Ozark folk Royal Rosamond wrote about. In this union is joined all that Folklore that Al Capp made famous, plus the Dukes of Hazard, and the Beverly HillBillys. My kinfolk have captured the Midwest Madonna, the Sexy Icon of the Redneck Yahoos, even the Country Western Princess upon which the Right-wing billionaires have hung their hat!

Above we see a photo of Christine beholding the painting I did of Rena Christiansen, which inspired her to take up art!

Let me show you the door, you phonies and frauds, you fat cats that claim you are the salt of the earth. Get out of the party John Fremont and his wife, Jessie Benton, co-founded. Get out of this Abolitionist Party you bum, drunk fake Rednecks, you status seeking neo-Confederate traitors – and form your own party. Make your own graven images, cause you can’t use mine for I Copyright them all! This is my true blood. I worship the soul of the true American Frontier Self.

Jon Presco

Copyright 2011

Object Description
The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley is a large oil painting depicting a scene inspired from a traditional Ozark folksong. The popular folksong was a tragic love ballad in which a jealous lover lures his fiancée into the woods to talk about their upcoming wedding. She grows tired and wants to turn back. He accuses her of cheating, she protests, and under the light of the full moon, he plunges a knife into her chest (Lawless, 1961).

Song illustration
Thomas Hart Benton, along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, made up a group of artists know as Regionalists. These artists were interested in depicting scenes of ordinary life in the United States, especially in the Midwest. In the 1920s, Benton journeyed across the country and traveled through the Ozarks. He produced a series of paintings inspired by traditional folksongs. The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley is part of that series. In this painting, Benton illustrates one of the most popular and tragic love ballads. He may have heard such ballads on his trip to the Ozarks or perhaps from his childhood days in Neosho, Missouri.

Three musicians in the lower right corner seem to be creating the scene with their music. The unstable background, rolling hills, and the tipped space appear to float around them. The musicians have their backs to the jealous lover and his fiancée, the two main characters from the ballad, and are seemingly oblivious to the action behind them. Faint musical notes in the swirling bands of colors flow up from around the violin and lead back to the young woman, linking the two scenes together. The men are wearing cowboy hats and traditional attire. There is also a haystack, a cow in the pasture, and a small cabin with adjacent outhouse. Some critics have described this scene as stereotypical “Ozark characters set in an Ozark background” (Lawless, 1961, p.37).

As with many of these traditional folksongs, the origins are often unknown and they have a long history of oral circulation based on memory. This particular ballad was so widespread that many different variations developed. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly which variation Benton was familiar with, but the basic story stays the same. Benton successfully captured the mood and illustrates the ballad in one scene.

Relevant stanzas:
Down in the lone green valley,
where the violets used to bloom
There sleeps one gentle Lemo
Now silent in the tomb…

‘Oh, Edward, I am tired,
I do not wish to roam;
For roaming is so dreary.
I pray you, take me home.”

Up stepped this jealous lover
And made one solemn vow:
‘No hand on earth can save you,
For I shall slay you now.’

Down on her knees before him
She humbly begged for life
But into her snowy bosom
He plunged the fatal knife.

“Oh, Edward, I forgive you,
Although this be my last breath.
For I never have deceived you,”
Then she closed her eyes in death.

1. Arwine, sometimes referred to as “The Outlaw Yates” , killed Non N.Ro samond on January 1, 1908 and wounded Mrs. Rosamond (shot her arm off) a nd killed Martha Rosamond Overturf, mother of Rachel Overturf Taylor. Ma rtha Rosamond Overturf’s daughter, Rachel Overturf, married William “Wil l” Hezekiah Allen Taylor and their daughter, Martha Jane Taylor, married H orace Norton.

He was in Jackson County, Arkansas in 1910 serving prison time, (Convi ct age 29, R. M. Johnson, Warden)

2. Various newpaper articles about “The Outlaw Yates”:

Green Forest Tribune, Friday, April 7, 1922

Yates Standridge is Badly Wounded

Harrison, Ark., April 3 Yates Standridge, notorious convict, paroled by t he Arkansas Penitentiary Commission March 1, is seriously wounded, and Har ry (Red) Campbell, aged 25, is dead
as a result of a gun battle which occurred in a field near Cooked Creek, o ne mile east of this place about 7 o’clock last night. The fight is suppos ed to have started over a 10-gallon keg of
whiskey found near the scene.

Alonzo Standridge, nephew of the wounded convict and who was seen with h im late yesterday afternoon, has disappeared. Yates said this morni ng he feared his nephew had been
wounded. He denies shooting Campbell, however, declaring that he did n ot have a gun. Campbell was shot five times through the body, two of t he bullets taking effect near the heart,
probably causing instant death. The body was found about 10 o’clock last n ight, lying in a pool of blood. Near the body was the keg of whiskey. Sta ndridge was shot in two places, once
through the abdomen and once through the arm. He is at the home of his ni ece, Mrs. O. T. Hoover, here. Attending physicians say he has a chan ce to recover. “Red” Campbell shot and
killed Frank Suskey on the streets of Harrison in 1914. He was tried, b ut acquitted on a plea of self-defense.