Jack Rollins may be best known as the lyricist behind one of the most beloved secular holiday songs of all time, but there is more to the Keyser-native than a one-hit wonder.
As the Easter season is officially upon us and as the Mary F. Shipper Library enters its final days of the Jack Rollins exhibition inside the library at WVU Potomac State College, it is worth noting that Rollins had another hit – one that many of us will be humming as we hunt the Quad for dyed eggs and devour chocolates.
While Rollins is most famous for penning "Frosty the Snowman" (and yes, that is why we have Frosty Fest here every year), he also wrote, “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.”
Both “Frosty” and “Cottontail” were originally recorded by Gene Autry. And both have been made into animated specials based on the songs. Arguably, “Peter Cottontail” is the most beloved and most popular children’s Easter song of all time.
According to local historian Champ Zumbrun, whose artifacts and materials make up the Rollins exhibit in the library, Rollins had an affinity for writing songs for children. He loved the innocence of creating a children’s tune and never thought of them as classics that would be sung by schoolchildren (and adults) for generations.
“If you want to get to know Jack Rollins, just look at the lively lyrics he wrote in his songs for children,” Zumbrun said. “Jack kept the gift of child-like wonder alive within him throughout his life. In 1952, Rollins cowrote ‘Smokey the Bear, ‘one of the most popular forest conservation anthems of all time, sung around countless campfire programs.”
The U.S Forest Service’s ad campaign, along with the song, elevated Smokey second only to Mickey Mouse in popularity of animated characters during the 1950’s and 1960’s. And Rollins wrote lyrics to many children’s tunes, some maybe not quite as well known as “Frosty the Snowman” and “Peter Cottontail” but still “great in their originality and youthful spirit,” Zumbrun said, including songs like “Pokey – The Polka Dot Clown,” “Blue Tail - the Red Fox.” “The Candy Land Parade,” “Rubber Knuckle Sam, Leader of the Washboard Band,” “Floppy –The Bashful Puppy,” and “Who Puts the Cat Out When Papa’s Out of Town?”
Jack Rollins was born in 1906 in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, about forty-nine miles southeast of Pittsburgh. He was one of a large family of siblings, consisting of several brothers and one sister, Hazel. Rollins remained close to his sister and brothers throughout his life. Family was particularly important to him. In 1932, one of his brothers moved to Keyser to serve as pastor at Keyser Church of the Brethren. His sister Hazel also came to live in Keyser. Hazel married Sheriff “Scratch “Stanley, and together in 1957, the couple founded the Chat-N-Chew Restaurant across the Potomac River in Allegany County. That restaurant is still open and still successful to this day. In fact, Potomac State athletic coaches have been known to treat their players to weekly celebratory breakfasts there.
Before beginning his career as a full-time songwriter, Jack Rollins worked at various jobs between the ages of 18 and 40. He was employed at a glass factory in Pittsburgh. During the Great Depression, he worked in a traveling carnival. Jack met his wife to be and her two children when the carnival traveled to Mount Vernon, New York. After marriage at the age of twenty-six, Jack worked as a baggage man at Penn Station in New York City.
“All this time, Jack wrote lyrics and put them to the music of his day. He learned this skill of telling stories in rhyme as a child while helping his blind mother with house chores. They made up stories together as they cleaned house,” said Zumbrun. “Later that night, Jack converted the stories to rhymes and replaced words in popular melodies with his lyrics. From these humble beginnings, Jack developed an art form that became second nature to him. This skill later brought Jack respect from his professional peers as ‘master of the lyric.’”
At the age of forty, never giving up on his dream to earn a living writing lyrics for songs, Rollins decided to devote all his time and talent to songwriting. Dubonnet Music Publishing in New York soon thereafter contracted Jack to write lyrics to songs. With Perry Alexander, Jack wrote several songs, including one in 1948, called “Safe at Home,” a moving tribute to the passing of Babe Ruth. These songs soon brought Jack to the attention of Jean and Julian Auerbach of Hill and Range Inc. in New York City. In late 1948, the Auerbach brothers signed Jack, paying him $3,000 a year to produce a minimum of one song a month. Other artists who signed with the Hill and Range publishing family included Eddy Arnold, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and a young unknown at the time by the name of Elvis Presley.
Then California called.
“In the early 1950’s, after enjoying a mid-life triumph with songwriting success, Rollins moved his family to Hollywood, California, where he lived for 15 years,” said Zumbrun. “In 1954, Rollins collaborated with Don Robertson on ‘I Don’t Hurt Anymore,’ recorded by Hank Snow. It was a huge hit, where it stayed number one for twenty weeks and remained on the charts for forty-one weeks.
That song has since been recorded by the likes of Dinah Washington, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Connie Francis, Martina McBride, and Willie Nelson.
In the mid-1960s, Rollins moved from Hollywood to Cincinnati, Ohio, to be near one of his daughters and grandchildren. Rollins died in 1973 in Cincinnati. He is interred, however, at Queens Point Cemetery in Keyser, according to his wishes to be near family. His stepdaughter, Jean Busemeyer, said at the time of his passing that Jack received many awards from the music industry, but always took special pride in the way children responded to his songs.
Rollins was inducted into the West Virginia Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2011.
The exhibit of Jack Rollins’ works, including music sheets and songbooks featuring some of his most famous works, including “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” can be seen until May 1 in the Mary Shipper Library on the campus of WVU Potomac State College.
“I am grateful to Mr. Zumbrun for entrusting our library with this collection, not just for exhibition, but for adding to our permanent collection,” said library director Nicholas Gardner.
Click here for more information about the library and the Rollins’ memorabilia that is featured.