Collector of West Virginia folklore. Musick was an English professor at Fairmont State
College known for documenting ghostlore and immigrant legends in the coalfields of the
state. She wrote a weekly column, “The Old Folks Say,” for the Fairmont Times—West
Virginian from 1948 to 1954, and she founded the West Virginia Folklore Journal in
1951.
Musick received her doctorate in English and creative writing from the University of
Iowa, but most of her academic career was devoted to collecting and preserving West
Virginia folklore. She began collecting in 1946 with an emphasis on ballads and
folksongs but gradually shifted to folktale and legend.
She received her formal folklore training in a summer Folklore Institute program
directed by Stith Thompson at Indiana University. She published many articles and three
books of her West Virginia materials: Ballads, Folk Songs, and Folk Tales from West
Virginia (1960), The Telltale Lilac Bush (1965), and Green Hills of Magic (1970). An
additional book of ghost legends drawn from her collection, Coffin Hollow and Other
Ghost Tales (1977), was issued after her death.
Musick’s books, though popular with general audiences and hence in print since their
publication, drew little scholarly attention. This is partly a result of her reliance on
written student sources for her materials, and consequently the literary quality of many
tales she presented. Even so, she ranks with John Harrington Cox, William Chappell, and
Patrick Gainer as indispensable sources of West Virginia state folklore.
Barry J.Ward