Show A touching nL sonar i I 1 who says sils a writer teron on songs 1 I 13 not familiar with old U uncle acle neb swanee ribber Al Masi asks ag in de coll cold cold grou ground A al 01 old d dog tray and 0 boys carry me long but how hov many know anything of the lindof life of the extraordinary man who wrote them stephen Col collins litis foster was eastorn boru HI in Pitt burg pa july 4 1826 he ile was a it musician almost from froin 66 cradle and at the age of seven li biad ad mastered the flageolet without a ai teacher every instrument in turn gaye aae up its sweetness to his touch but ut he never cared io to become becomes a dia distinguished performer to compose th the words and of df a song was his chief delight from boyhood he brofe the words first then hummed them over and lind aver till he be found foun d notes that W wound ouy d ex express them properly his first published sang appeared in 1842 when he waa was a merchants cler cleric k in cincin cincinnati ti a second was published the same year in in Bal baltimore timor e the success of these impelled jiin him to give up business and devote himself to td composition for a livelihood he returned to pittsburg Fitts burg where he married mr foster poster had a wide range of culture was an eager reader an anil and d proficient in french and german and was somewhat of a painter the few who beca became his intimates teg speak most enthusiastically of his varied powers but he was retiring and sensitive he attempted to illustrate illustrato one otie of his pathetic songs I 1 and handed banded the sketch h with the manuscript to his looked at ii it and hud aistis said I 1 pleasantly oh another comic comic song mr fos terl the artist tore up the sketch and find made no ampre pictures for the public it has bean said that fos ter received for old folks at home homb this is incorrect but one ono publishing house paid him nearly for thoc those tho c of his compositions which were issued by them hia His songs have been trans trang late dinto anost of the Euro european peah and nd some of the asiatic langua languages gei mr foster poster spent his last years in new york rethe most familiar sound was a strain of his own music and the least familiar sight a face that he be knew know he ile became beanie somewhat improvident and aud would sell 11 for a few dollars a song that bought brought a large aum ium sum to its purchaser cl iager several of his best were composed afi in a backroom bac kroom of an old down town grocery on pieces of brown wrapping pa er he died in a hospital to which he had been carried from a hotel in the bowery J january 18 1864 of old dog tray copies were sold in eighteen months tb the 0 morn of life is past I 1 and evening comes at last it brines brings me a dream of a once once happy day of merry forma forms ive been seen upon the village green S Sp parti orlina ng with nay my old dog tray glorus old dog tray rray ever faithful grief cannot drive him away hes e gentle antle he be is kind I 1 ill 11 n never r never find A b better tt e r friend than old dog tray I 1 the forms I 1 callad my own haap yani vanished shed one by one the I 1 loved oved on esthe dear ones bave halall all passed away happy flown I 1 oan their gentar to voices ices gone I 1 ive ve nothing left it but ut old dog tray |