Back and Forth (A Ghost Story)

In 1927 a 12-year-old girl named Vilo Demille was playing Run Sheepie Run (a version of Hide & Seek) in Grafton, Utah (a remote town once used as a hideaway by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). She shut her eyes while the other kids ran to hide, and when she opened them again she saw two pale girls in long white dresses, hair clear down to their waist, run through the fence and disappear.

She then found out about the two girls (Loretta Russell and Elizabeth Woodbury) who had died in a terrible accident in Grafton in 1866, when the log which held up their swing fell on them. The two long-haired girls were buried in long white dresses. Vilo Demille. now 93, "swears to this day" that the girls she saw "were the ghosts of those two girls who died on that swing."

Pictured below are Vilo Demille and the members of Red Rock Rondo, who performed "Back and Forth (A Ghost Story)" for Vilo at Grafton cemetery - in front of the grave of the two girls - for an upcoming TV special in celebration of Zion National Park's 2009 Centennial, "A Century of Sanctuary."

Grafton is now a ghost town.

Vilo Demille & Red Rock Rondo in Grafton cemetery

To return to Zion Canyon Song Cycle titles, click here. To return to Red Rock Rondo's main page, click here.

Back and Forth (A Ghost Story) - Lyrics

In the year Jesse James robbed his first bank
     And Butch Cassidy was born
Three little girls went to ride the swing
     In the frontier town of Grafton
The ’62 flood and the Indian wars
     Were not enough to kill them
They loved to go swing back and forth
     As long as God was willing
~~~~~~~~
Lizzie went with Lettie and Sarah
     To ride the swing at the old cotton gin
She swung back and forth with Sara in her lap
     Then said, “Run home just as fast as you can”
Before Sarah got home she heard and awful crash
     The old log at the top had come down
They dressed Lizzie and Lettie in long white dresses
     And Sarah saw them laid in the ground
~~~~~~~~~
Back and forth, forth and back they swing
Back and forth, forth and back, can’t change a thing
     Now they surely know
     It’s their fate to go
Back and forth from one world to the other
~~~~~~~~~
The year Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs
     Vilo Demille was playing Run Sheepie Run
The children of Grafton ran to hide
     While she shut her eyes, then she opened them wide
And saw two pale girls in long white dresses
     Hair clear down to their waist
She tried to give chase but they went through the fence
     And disappeared into space
~~~~~~~~~
Back and forth, forth and back we come
Back and forth, forth and back we go
     From one world to the other
     Through the veil between
Back and forth we go to one another
~~~~~~~~
Back and forth we come
Back and forth we go

~~~~~~~~

vocals Phillip, Kate • violin Flavia • English horn Charlotte
mandocello Hal • guitar Phillip • bass Harold

To hear this song, click here.

To return to Zion Canyon Song Cycle titles, click here.

To return to Red Rock Rondo's main page, click here.