Precious Memories: Reuniting the Carvell Collection with Monongalia County Churches

Joy Decker: Ok, a typical sing—as I remember—we would just show up and the leader would begin by singing some congregational hymns and usually they were ones in a songbook, but they were also the old hymns that most of us already knew and liked to sing. And after the congregational singing then there were—like you said—there were certain people who showed up many times. And so, you just kind of knew that they would have a song or two to sing, but if there was anybody new who was there, they would have told the leader that they had something to sing. And so, he would have decided who sang when, and then interspersed between the special music we would do congregational singing. And especially if somebody, like, had to get prepared—get their music out, get their guitar out, whatever—the congregational singing would take up that space.