The Ballad of Minnie Dean

Minnie Dean was a baby-farmer in Southland NZ, hanged in 1895 for killing a baby. This ballad was written in 1999 by Invercargill-born Helen Henderson, now singing in Los Angeles. "Minnie was like the bogeyman of our town when I was a kid," she says. "If you were giving cheek to your mum or being naughty it was like 'You better watch or I'll send you off to Minnie Dean's farm and you'll never be heard of again.'

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Minnie
• Dean
• baby
• farmer
• illegitimate
• murder
• ballad
• New
• Zealand
• folk
• song
• train
• hat-box
• hanged
• Winton

[dxnz]

I hope Helen Henderson is never heard of again. This is an atrocious song that doesn't to justice to the story at all.

[RODADY2]

But it is a great song to sing at a C&W club. Do you come from Southland yourself? Helen Henderson grew up near Minnie Dean's grave and the chorus is exactly what her mother said to her when she was naughty, and it is what other Southland mothers said to their children too. And the verses fit in with newspapers reports of the time.

So how do you think the song should be changed to do more justice to the story?

[MrNiceGuy8615]

Great work Helen! I lived near Winton too and I used to get told the same as a child by my mother who believed she should never have been hanged. You have exposed a great hypocracy as most people down in Southland believe she should never have been hanged.

[breagle76]

This is a great song, done in the tradition of all folks songs..to tell a story. Based on real events and the fictional element that always creep into a good legend, this is a great example of modern story-telling in a song.

Fantastic lyrics and music.

'nuff said!

[9valkyrie]

1. Helen Henderson deserves THANKS for recording these old stories of herstory (women´s history).

2. I am a member of the first generation where most of the born unwanteds were made to go on existing; and I must tell you that I always envied the dead.

They are out of it, I still hurt.

3. Would you moralizing biblethumpers PLEASE get your physiques away from our reproductive rights!

[harley88040]

um helen henderson doooooooooooooooo

[harley88040]

exactly

[harley88040]

um grow up ok. the song is beautifull :p

[harley88040]

you are so right

[harley88040]

i love it

[peter9801]

Good catchy song, nice looking lady, good band, good luck to her.

[Kaikopere]

There was no contraception in Minnie's day, and no welfare payments for unmarried mothers. Rich married men got girls pregnant, and the babies that resulted had to be made to vanish to keep up respectability. Note the line "Here lie the babies nobody wanted." Minnie tried to look after the babies, but many of them died due to poor living conditions. Minnie was made a scapegoat for the hypocrisy and lack of love in the community.