AV 201 Anne Grimes Collection

              AV 201
Anne Grimes Collection
Page 1
OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Manuscripts/Audiovisual Collections
AV 201
Anne Grimes Collection
1941-1980
OVERVIEW OF THE COLLECTION
Number: AV 201
Title: Anne Grimes Collection
Creator: Anne Grimes, Harold Heckendorn
Dates: Original Recordings: 1941-1980
Master and Access Copies: 1985
Media: Audio recordings, supporting
documentation
Quantity: 3.5 Cubic feet
Location: Ohio Historical Center
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE COLLECTION
Folk musician and music scholar Anne (Laylin) Grimes, the daughter of Clarence Dewey Laylin
and Fanny Ward Hagerman Laylin, was born in 1912 in Columbus, Ohio. Grimes attended
North High School; earned bachelors degrees in art and music from Ohio Wesleyan University
and did graduate work in music history at The Ohio State University. She began her career in
1942 as the dance and music critic for the Citizen Journal, a Columbus newspaper.
In the 1950s Grimes began her extensive work to preserve Ohio’s folk music heritage. She
traveled the state to interview and record musicians playing and singing traditional folk tunes.
Grimes called people she recorded her “contributors,” among the noted were John M. Bodiker,
Bob Gibson, Pete Seeger, Albert B. Graham, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, May Kennedy McCord,
Branch Rickey and Carl Sandburg.
At this time she also became known as an expert on the dulcimer. Her album “Ohio State
Ballads: History through Folk Songs, Anne Grimes with Dulcimer” was issued in 1957. In 1971
Grimes performed at Governor John J. Gilligan’s inaugural gala held at the Ohio Theater. As a
performer she advertised that her repertoire included more than 1,500 songs in a variety of
musical styles.