The Family Songs

Mom’s gentle voice made me fall in love with music. I can still hear her singing hymns and lullabies to my siblings and me.

When my husband, Jack Cannon, and I had our own children, we started The Cannon Family Band. Just like the Partridge Family we traveled all over in our big ol’ bus playing hymns and gospel music.

I sang, with Jack accompanying on steel guitar and three of our daughters on drums, mandolin and bass. Our two youngest, just toddlers, danced along. Oh, the fun we had!

When the kids were grown, our band days behind us, I kept our hymnals. I especially treasured the few hymnals I’d inherited from Mom.

More than 50 years later, that modest collection of songbooks has grown to 100. They come from all over: used bookstores, garage sales, gifts from friends. Each one has a story all its own and is a chapter in the larger story of those happy times for the Cannon family.

Recently I underwent treatment for a recurrence of breast cancer. I hired a woman to help out with chores around the house while I recovered. One day she stumbled upon the hymnals. Did that get me talking!

“Ms. Cannon, where’d you find this one?” she asked, holding up a blue, weathered book titled The New Century Carols.

For the life of me I couldn’t remember! But one thing stood out: the angel on the cover.

I wondered if it had flown down from Mom in heaven. Because surely every collection should include an angel.