The other Margaret Marks sought

I know I’m not the only person of my name (as I’ve mentioned before, and see below). Now another one: a publisher is looking for a Margaret Marks who translated a song from the Polish. The song is to be reprinted and it’s a question of translator’s copyright.

Here is the ditty:
(English words by Margaret Marks, printed in a 1981 Silver Burdett music textbook)

bq. “Who’s been eating up my corn?”
Cried the farmer one fine morn;
Saw a rabbit, tried to grab it,
But the critter got away!
Etc.

Incidentally, there is a version on the Web with slightly different words, but that isn’t the one.

I had to confess that this is a bit too American for my usual style (apart from the fact that I don’t speak Polish).

Anyone know this person?

There was a Margaret Marks who was a barkeeper in Nevada and died in 1998.

bq. One of the best known saloons that Virginia City ever produced was the Crystal Bar. It was established and operated by Con Ahern until the very early part of the nineteenth century. It was then sold to his friend and employee, William Marks, Sr.. Marks began a family legacy with the bar that lasted until the late 1990’s.

bq. The “Mystery Clock” was installed by the Marks family and has remained a focal point of interest to the tourists. The secret of the “Mystery” clock passed on with Margaret Marks, Bill’s wife, when she died in 1998.

They don’t explain why it is a mystery. Perhaps no-one now knows it’s a mystery, and that is the mystery. MM was famous for her mint julep.

People in my family have run pubs, but I don’t think there’s a connection.

There is another Margaret Marks in Nevada who is involved in local politics or something.

One thought on “The other Margaret Marks sought

  1. You’ll have to tell your impersonator to desist.

    I recall the gall of the name-usurpers McDonalds – unsuccesfully – trying to stop an eponymous Scotswoman running a transport cafe with the same name in the UK.

    There’s also the case of the two sportswomen called Steffi(Stefanie) Graf – one the recently retired, Olympic-class Austrian middle-distance runner, and the other the German tennis champion.

    Though personal names are hard to protect by copyright, I believe Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones once got upset and tried to make an American namesake drop his name-at-birth, Bill Wyman, when authoring a rock-&-pop news sheet – again vaguely in the same line of trade.

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