Row Home Remembers MaryMiss Mack

And Favorite Tunes From Our Jump Rope Past

by Dorette Rota Jackson

It is called the most popular handclapping game in the English-speaking world. Its written form in America dates to 1888, when Miss Mary Mack was included in a book called The Counting Out Rhymes of Children by Henry Carrington Bolton who lived in West Chester, Pennsylvania. In the game, two children stand opposite each other and clap hands in time to a rhyming song like this one.

Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack

All dressed in black black black With silver buttons buttons buttons All down her back back back She asked her mother mother mother For fifty cents cents cents

To see the elephant elephant elephant Jump over the fence fence fence He jumped so high high high He touched the sky sky sky And he never came back back back Till the fourth of July July July Goodbye!

So, who is Mary Mack?

Little is known about Mary Mack. Some believe that Mary Mack referred to the Civil War ship USS Merrimack (1855) named after the Merrimack River that runs through New

England. The theory might be true since the Merrimack’s color was black with silver rivets. Now that I have the attention of a lot of Boomers reading this right now, let me throw a few other tunes your way. I know you’ll be singing along once I shake those memories loose. Unlike Mary Mack, we sang these catchy classics while jumping rope. Of course, every era put its own spin on the lyrics. These were a few of ours.

ICE CREAM SODA with the cherry on the top

What’s the initial of my sweetheart

Is it a, b, c, … (Keep jumping until you miss or jump out when you get to your sweetheart’s initial)

3, 6, 9, THE GOOSE DRANK WINE

The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line

The line broke

The monkey got choked

And they all went to heaven

In a little rowboat, clap, clap

A – MY NAME IS ANNA

And I come from Alabama

My mother’s name is (Amy)

And we sell (Apples)

(Repeat every letter of the alphabet matching the names with the letter)