BY JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE.
Recently I received an email from Travis Brown, USA. Travis wrote: “Hi Jeannie, I’m reaching out because I was doing some googling on the history of women bagpipers and your name came up repeatedly. I do a lot of family history research, and was working on some of my Scottish ancestors. I discovered a lot of information on my Great Grand Aunt, Janet May (Currie) Woodard. She was the daughter of my second Great Grandparents, William Currie and Helen Armstrong. They were born in Scotland and arrived in the US in 1890. William was a mechanical engineer who came to Lewiston, Maine to work in the textile mills.
“There was a very strong Scottish community in the Lewiston area. William was the band leader for Clan Campbell OSC, which was a Scottish fraternal organisation. He played the bagpipes, and I have several pictures of him dressed up in a kilt with bagpipes. As I was researching his children, Janet popped up in numerous newspaper articles as a bagpipe prodigy. She was born in Webster, Maine in 1900 and at the age of 14, the local newspaper wrote a rather extensive article about her ability and training.
“The sad and unfortunate part is that she died very young due to illness, at age 23. She had married at age 19 and had 2 very young children when she passed. Her husband could not keep a job and ended up leaving. The younger of her two children was adopted and raised by William and Helen.
“After reading various newspaper articles about her life and accomplishments, it struck me how rare it was for that time period. I’m emailing you because I think you might appreciate her story. She has been forgotten, and I only wish she would be remembered and appreciated for what she accomplished in so short a time.”
In a second email in response to my reply Travis added: “In doing some more digging, I found out my Great Grandmother Adeline Currie played the bass drum in the band. She was born in 1906 so 6 years younger than Janet. William, Janet and Adeline formed a band called the Kilties, or Kincaid Kilters and played around the state. My grandfather has told me at one time there was a trunk with Adeline’s kilt and other items but it has potentially been lost. Hopefully it will turn up! He was born in 1934 and said his core memory of William Currie was the smell of his pipe smoke on the front porch.’ “
The story is backed up by a number of newspaper articles and family photographs sent by Travis.
Lewiston Sun Journal June 6th 1914
It is the distinction of Miss Janet May Currie, a fourteen-years-old lass of Sabatis village, in the town of Webster, to hold a silver medal for bagpipe playing and the honor of excelling even the men of the local Clan Campbell who can pipe a tune. Moreover it is a fact that she is one of the very few (if any) women in this country who can play the bagpipes; and the report from the old country is that it is rarely that woman ever tries to play this ancient and honourable musical instrument.
Miss Currie, stranger still, is only 14 years of age, although because of her stalwart frame and mature development, she looks several years older. In fact, it is because of her physical strength that she has been successful in playing this difficult Instrument, which only men of hardy type ever assay. Sick folks, hollow-chested men and most women have not been reckoned, in the old country or in the new, as able to handle this instrument. Not only is good lung power essential, but strength in the shoulders and arms for adequate and continued pressure of the pipes, and musical knowledge for the mastering of the quaint music of the hills of old Scotland.
Miss Currie, when a lass of only 10 and 11 years, began to finger a tin whistle and try to evolve Home, Sweet Home and kindred simple airs. Andrew Scott of Lewiston, one of the pipers of Clan Campbell, took an interest in the young lady and insisted that she ought to learn to play the bagpipes. To this end he made her a “chanter,” which is one of the pipes of the bagpipe having eight holes and blown directly from the mouth. With this chanter one obtains the same effects as from the bagpipe except for volume of sound and the bass and tenor tones produced by the “drones” on other pipes in the big instrument.
So Miss Currie was nothing loathe to begin practice on the chanter and with Mr. Scott’s help and that of her father, William Currie, who a short time before began to play the pipes from ear, she quickly mastered the fingering and some of the simplest airs.
It did not take long for Miss Currie to reach out for further achievements and her aptitude brought her playing to the attention of Angus Mann, formerly of Lewiston, later of Canada and now of Portland. Mr. Mann at once recognised her unusual ability and offered to teach her how to read the music. He began work with her on the fundamentals and after several months had reason to be most proud of his apt pupil.
Miss Currie now has a big bagpipe of her own and a Highlander suit-save the kilts which are due to arrive from the bonny heaths of Scotland ere another snow falls-and has repertoire of some thirty or forty tunes, which include many of the old Scotch favourites, strathspeys, jigs reels and marches.
Her devotion to her music is indicated in some measure by the pains she has taken to transcribe copies into a book of her own, although more recently she has acquired a book of many bagpipe selections. The first she ever learned was The Green Hills of Tyrol. Then came the Atholl Highlanders, Highland Laddie, The Campbells are Coming, etc. She can now read the bagpipe music at sight and is constantly adding to her list. It was at a children’s affair at Clan Campbell in Lewiston that Miss Currie was first heard by Mr. Mann.
Since then she has come to hold an honoured place in the clan. When she first played the bagpipe at a Burns anniversary the clansmen were so pleased that they presented her with a silver medal which to her is priceless. The medal is of most attractive design and bears the inscription, “Bag Pipe Playing. Presented to Jeanette Currie by Clan Campbell, Lewiston, Me., 1913.”
Nor have the Lewiston Scotch people been the only ones to hear and admire this Webster lass’ playing pipes. It fell to her to be invited to play at Portland for a Scotch celebration in honour of Burns, when she appeared in duets with Mr. Scott. Later she was invited to play at Skowhegan where she played in company with her father and for the first time played alone. Mr. Currie concedes first place to his daughter, for he has never learned to read the music and he now learns as his daughter teaches him by ear.
It was a proud day for Miss Currie when her folks decided that she should have some pipes of her own. The chanter had had its day for practice. Now she must have the big instrument for public work. These bagpipes are not easily obtainable here in Maine, so that the Scotch people desiring them usually send to Canada or back to the old country. Miss Currie’s handsome pipes came from Canada. There is the big leather bag covered with green cloth, the plaid trimmings and the queer pipes. It looks like a cumbersome thing for a girl of 14 years to handle, but Miss Currie uses it like a mistress of the art. The mouthpiece is used to keep the leather bag filled with air and the pressure of the arm forces a steady supply of air thru the pipes, the chanter and the drones, as they are played.
In the instrument as used by Miss Currie and other Scotch people today there is little or no variation from the bagpipes which were used centuries ago by the primitive peoples of Europe or as it is used by the descendants of the Gael in Scotland and northern Ireland. It is a popular instrument at all Scotch gatherings either in the old country or in this and always celebrates the festive occasion. Pipers are still an essential feature of the Highland regiments in England and not a few Scottish noblemen retain pipers for their own and others’ entertainment in their ancient castles among the hills.
Miss Currie’s only rivals here in Lewiston are Mr. Scott, to whom reference has been made as her first teacher; John Blair and Mr. Currie, her father. Yet in many a Scotch home, when the man of the house has returned home from the shop and had his supper of hot Scotch scones and other delicacies, may be heard the gentle and irresistible piping of the little chanter from the chimney corner where the old favourite tunes are played and memory wanders back across the water to the home-land and the old folks still there.
Mr. Currie was born in Scotland, as was Mrs. Currie also, and they had two children prior to coming to this country, but Miss Currie, whose’ name has become famous so early, was born in Sabatis village where she has always made her home. She is in the eighth grade of the village school, a bright, alert pupil, and expects to continue her studies at least another year, to finish the grammar school course. Her plans are indefinite as to what she will do thereafter.
Scotch people are warm-hearted folks and it is needless to say that Janet is dearly beloved by them all and the more because she is glorifying the music of her ancestors so well.’
Kennebec Journal – 8/15/1921
One of the most attractive features of the ball game Saturday afternoon was the music which was furnished by the Kilties’ Band of Lewiston, consisting of Jack Smith of Portland, William Currie of Sebattus, and Mrs. Janet Woodward of Lewiston as pipers, William Graham and William Gibson of Lewiston and Robert Currie of Oakland as drummers. Mrs. Woodward, who is a sister of Mr. Currie, is well known throughout the State, having travelled on the stage for some time with the Kincaid Kilters. The band also went to Waterville Saturday, where they played for a short time.
Special • Despatch to The PRESS HERALD Lewiston, Jan. 24 1923
CLAN CELEBRATES BURNS’ BIRTHDAY Lewiston Order Turns Out With Pipes And Full Scotch Regalia.
Clan Campbell, order of Scottish clans, celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, by a parade followed by a concert and dance at City hall. The parade of the Clan in full Scottish regalia, was headed by the Clan Campbell bagpipe band, under the lead of piper William Currie. Two of the members of the band are women, daughters of Mr. Currie, Mrs. Janet Currie Woodard, piper, and Miss Adeline Currie, drummer. The band made a big hit. At the concert a fine program of Scotch songs and dances was given opening with a selection by the bagpipe band. The artists who gave the concert were from Boston and New York, and were Esther Mathew, contralto; John Provan, musical humorist; Jennie Fletcher, soprano, Joseph Mathew, tenor, and Catherine Wilson, interpretive dancer. A dance followed the program.
Obituaries were published for William who died Sabattus, Maine, 31 March, 1939 and Helen who died Sabattus, Maine, 8 June 1940.
‘Sabattus- William B Currie, 74, died Friday in his home at Sabattus after a short illness. He was born at Stowe, Scotland, April 13, 1863, the son of William and Sarah Halliday Currie and came to Sabattus 48 years ago from Galashiels, Scotland.
For 20 years, Mr Currie owned and operated a sawmill at Sabattus, and these last 13 years he operated a gasoline station. He attended the Advent church, was trustee and clan piper of Clan Campbell of Lewiston.
There survive his wife, Mrs Helen Armstrong Currie of Sabattus; two sons, William J Currie of Hoboken, N J, and Robert H of Lewiston; seven daughters, Mrs Ina Bradstreet of Lewiston, Mrs Sadie Creighton, Mrs Nellie Coburn, Mrs Elizabeth Spencer, Mrs Isabel Getchell and Miss Lorene Currie of Sabattus, Mrs Adeline Brown of Wilton; a brother Thomas Currie of Camden; a sister, Mrs Margaret Mitchell of Camden also, several grandchildren and one great-grandchild.’
‘Sabattus- Mrs Helen A Currie widow of William Currie of Sabattus died at the C M G hospital Saturday where she had been a patient for the past four weeks. Mrs Currie had been in failing health for several months.
A native of Galashiels, Scotland she was born December 23, 1865 the daughter of John and Helen Armstrong.
She married William Currie October 7, 1887 at the Parish church of Galashiels. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary October 7, 1937.
Survivors include five daughters Mrs Ina Bradstreet of Lewiston, Mrs Sadie Creighton, Mrs Elizabeth Spencer, Mrs Isabel Getchell and Miss Lorene Currie all of Sabattus, Mrs Adeline Brown of Wilton; two sons, Robert Currie of Lewiston and William Currie of Secaucus, N J.’