The Lullaby's Last Name: Why Teller's Creek Still Calls Maren

The Lullaby's Last Name: Why Teller's Creek Still Calls Maren

A hollow name written in neat clerical ink on March 14, 1891 is the only trace of a child nobody officially recorded - and a lullaby in Teller's Creek has been ending with that same single name for over a century. Why would a town with detailed parish registers leave one infant as nothing but Maren, and why did the community keep singing her name without asking whose it was?

In this episode, we follow the discovery of a lone baptismal entry and the oral tradition that kept a name alive; the episode traces how a parish register, a county archive, and a local historian converged on the mystery. How do three other documents unearthed soon after complicate what a single line in a book seems to promise?

Person: Maren Date: March 14, 1891 Location: Teller's Creek, Pottuck County Person: Judith O'Brien Person: Jennifer Williams

- The parish register entry for Maren lists only her given name and has no parents, no surname, and no weight in the margin. - Saint Columba's Episcopal Church register shows nineteen other infants in 1891 with marginal weights recorded, but Maren's entry omitted that detail. - Teller's Creek's population was approximately 800 people in 1891 and the mill at the eastern branch had operated since 1844. - Judith O'Brien was 24 years old in winter 1890 and placed her infant in Reverend Hartley's care in January 1891. - Jennifer Williams archived nine distinct variants of the lullaby by 2005 and learned of the baptismal entry on March 4, 2011 after a volunteer photographed the register.

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