Dutchman makes presentation to Jimmie Rodgers Museum

Published 4:02 am Wednesday, April 27, 2016

    Rob Lemmens is proof positive country music has world-wide appeal.

    A citizen of The Netherlands, Lemmens and three of his Dutch friends  appeared Tuesday afternoon at the Jimmie Rodgers Museum in Highland Park to present an original copy of an article written about Sam Williams, the WWI soldier from Macon, who inspired Rodgers’ first recording, “The Soldier’s Sweetheart.”  

    Williams later died in the war and is buried in France where he fell in battle.

    On hand for the presentation of the article to museum president Betty Lou Jones were musicians Scott McQuaig and Vasti Jackson.

    “My two passions are music and WWI,” said Lemmens, a WWI European battlefield guide. “I read Jimmie Rodgers’ biography and found out he and Sam Williams were boyhood friends. When Sam died, Jimmie Rodgers wrote the song in 1918 to bring comfort to Nellie, Sam’s fiancee. Sam died in the last stages of the war near the Argonne Forest.”

    Meridian was one of the final stops on Lemmens’ musical tour across the country. Previous stops included Memphis, Nashville, the boyhood home of Johnny Cash in Dyess, Ark.; Montgomery, Ala.; Muscle Shoals, Ala., and Tupelo, among others.

    Lemmens previously visited Meridian in 2015. At that time, he presented his research at the Jimmie Rodgers Music Symposium, visited the museum and Rodgers’ grave site and attended the festival named in honor of Rodgers.

    On March 7, 2015, Lemmens and his group visited Williams’ grave site in France and placed a wreath on the site and played “The Solder’s Sweetheart.”