Marais des Cygnes -
the story behind the song - by Lynda Millard

The Marais des Cygnes river flows through Osawatomie, Kansas; the town I’ve always considered to be my ‘hometown’, even though I was born in Paola. The Millard side of my family in Kansas was always my bedrock. After divorcing my dad when I was about 5, my mom moved all over the country with me. But I always had those beloved people and that comforting place to return to, every summer. My dad, LeRoy, and my Millard grandparents lived in Beagle, Kansas.

My mom and dad got back together 23 years later, and ended up back in Osawatomie. My dad passed away on September 27, 2014, and I moved back there from Austin to care for my mom. It was surreal, living there without the Millards being alive. I wrote the first half of this song while I was there.

In 2019, my mom and I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. A few months after we moved, I found out through Ancestry that LeRoy was not my biological father. It was devastating to find out that I was not blood-related to so many people I had loved my entire life. The saving grace has been to find that I truly love the dear people I am related to, as well.

The folding chair in the first line of the song refers to Ginger’s brother Rick coming to me in a dream, just a few days after he had passed away. He showed up with a folding chair and gave me information I could not have known, but that Ginger later verified.
In the song, I’m asking my dad to do the same.

The ‘Heaven’s Hill’ referred to in the song is Mound Creek Cemetery, just southeast of Beagle, Kansas. I spent a lot of time there in the summers. While Grandpa Ben mowed the grass, Grandma Nora and I would place flowers and she would tell me stories behind the names on the graves. The first time it was called ‘Heaven’s Hill’ was when Ginger wrote the song ‘Kansas’, after we had traveled there for my beloved grandmother Nora’s funeral. Over the years, my name, my children’s name and even Ginger’s name have been etched in the Millard family gravestones there.

The video for the song 'Kansas' by Velvet Hammer:
https://youtu.be/wWYQpDCo2k4?si=mA5PIA4HBC_VcDtX


The Marais des Cygnes river holds a special place in my heart. It’s where my dad and grandpa first taught me to fish. I have wonderful memories of just going to sit under the Creamery Bridge and listen to the water. But the river has also taken some lives, and has been known to flood the little town of Osawatomie, so often that a dam was built around the entire city. This song is for my dad, Joseph LeRoy Millard, but also for the families of those the river took.

Lyrics

Marais des Cygnes
copyright 2024
words and music by Lynda Millard

Lynda Millard - guitar, vocals
Ginger Doss - piano, keyboard strings, vocals
Betsy Tinney - cello
Recorded by Ginger Doss
Mixed by James Tuttle
Produced by Lynda Millard and Ginger Doss


Come to me with a folding chair
in my dreams, so I know you're there
Here I sit in this town we shared
on the Marais des Cygnes

Will it end where it all began
Summers Fall into Winters
Will my Spring be born again here
on the Marais des Cygnes

Marais des Cygnes
will you take me down
I miss everything I remember
living in this town
When you went away that September
I didn't know I could drown
on the Marais des Cygnes

Generations dear to me
and sixty years of believing
What I thought was my family tree
just shattered into kindling
But down the road up on Heaven's Hill
everyone there lives forever
in my heart
the love survived the truth
that flooded me

On the Marais des Cygnes.....