Hedwig Grace West (1938 - 2005)

Biography

Hedy West is Notable.

Hedy West was a Georgian.

Hedy West was a New Yorker.

Prize winning Appalachian ballad and folk singer whose songs highlighted blue collar mountain workers like farmers and coal miners.

West was born 6 Apr 1938 in Cartersville, Georgia, the daughter of union organizer, activist, and poet Don West, the founder of the Highlander Folk School in Summerfield, Tennessee, and his wife, Mabel Adams West. She came from a line of musicians, with her grandmother having played the banjo, and great-uncle the fiddle. She was named Hedwig after a German friend of her father's, but it was shortened to Hedy very early on.

West began performing at folk festivals in her teen years, winning a prize for ballad singing in Nashville, Tennessee, in the mid-1950s. She studied first at West Carolina College, then later at Mannes College, and Columbia University in New York. It was while she was in New York that she became involved in the Greenwich Village folk scene and first met Pete Seeger.

Beginning in 1960, Hedy lived for a time in Los Angeles, where she wed her first husband in a marriage that did not last. In 1966, she appeared on Seeger's television series Rainbow Quest, alongside Mississippi John Hurt and banjo player Paul Cadwell. Shortly thereafter, she relocated to England and lived there several years. She went into a marriage of convenience with radio broadcaster Pete Myers in 1968, which also later ended.

In 1970, she moved to Germany, where she was wed a third time, moving back to New York in 1980. Following her husband's death in 1988, she finally moved to the Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania, where she lived until her death in 2005.

Sources

• Wikipedia contributors. “Hedy West.” Wikipedia, 2 Sept. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_West. Accessed 29 Sept. 2021. ‌

• Schofield, Derek. “Hedy West.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 11 Sept. 2005, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/sep/12/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1. ‌

• Hunt, Ken. “Hedy West.” The Independent, 17 July 2013, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hedy-west-303245.html. Accessed 29 Sept. 2021. ‌

• Rockwell, John. “HEDY WEST RENEWING FOLK TRADITIONS.” The New York Times, 15 May 1981, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/15/arts/hedy-west-renewing-folk-traditions.html. Accessed 29 Sept. 2021. ‌

See Also:

• "United States Census, 1940", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KW6C-F91 : Thu Jun 15 02:25:02 UTC 2023), Entry for Donald L West and Mabel West, 1940.
• "California Divorce Index, 1966-1984," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VP5P-CW8 : 15 May 2014), Grace H West and Karl G Ludloff, Sep 1966; from "California Divorce Index, 1966-1984," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2007); citing Los Angeles City, California, Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento.
• "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, Births, and Marriages 1980-2014," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QKWN-9KLR : accessed 2 July 2023), Hedy West in entry for Donald L West, Georgia, United States, 02 Oct 1992; from "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - Today)," database, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com : 2014); citing Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The, born-digital text.
• "United States Social Security Death Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JTD2-QY9 : 11 January 2021), Hedy W Katz, 03 Jul 2005; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
• Wikipedia: Hedy_West
• Wikidata: Item Q4990341, en:Wikipedia