Favorite Song

As a child Margaret sung many songs. There was a historical song her mother used to sing her about the Civil War. Mattie, Margaret's mother, her father (Galen Van Valkenburg) a dummer boy in the Civil War.



Galen Van Valkenburg
 (Margarets Grandfather)



The Song Goes as follows:



Bring the good Old bugel boys.

We'll have another song.

Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong.

Sing it while the potatoes come a sprouting from the ground

while we go marching through Georgia.

Hooray, Hoorah! The flag that makes us free

Hooray, hoorah! We'll sing the jubilee.

Im going to let my Grandma Grape tell a story that relates to the Civil War because it is about her Grandfather Galen Van Valkenburg. This is excerpt from a book Margaret, Ellen, and Bill published from home about there lives.

"When the War between the States broke out, the family lived in Erie, PA. Galen was fourteen years old at the time, and wanted to serve his side of the cause so badlym he ran away from home three times... At that time, his father organized a volunteer company and joined the War, too. Galen was so small he became a messenger boy. He was not large enought to carry a gun. In some of his campaigns he was a drummer boy, and he had to be carrried on the shoulders of men in the streams they had to ford. He was in the War to the finish; however, being so young when the fighting was over and wanting to return home so badly, he left for home without his discharge papers. So he had no record of having served in the Union Army. After the War, his family moved to Colorado and founded the town of Erie, CO." (Cholski Margaret K.)