Songwriter Beth Slater Whitson was born in Goodrich, Hickman County, in 1879. Her parents were John H. Whitson and Anna Slater Whitson; her father was coeditor of the Hickman Pioneer newspaper. Beth Whitson began her extensive songwriting career in Hickman County. With the assistance of her younger sister Alice Whitson Norton, she composed lyrics to over four hundred songs and wrote poems and short stories, many of which were published in leading magazines of the early twentieth century. Her first major hit was “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” in 1909; it was followed the next year by “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” which is still performed today.

Condition very good. Very popular sheet music, Roses; Reine Davies (photograph) [illustration] on front cover. Lyrics: first lines, “Once again sweetheart I wander In the dear familiar ways, And the stars that shine up yonder. Bring me dreams of other days, Then, ‘twas spring and birds were calling