KEYSER, W.Va. — Relatively few West Virginians may know that the tale of "Frosty the Snowman" came to life in the Mountain State. While the story by Walter E. “Jack” Rollins, who was born in Keyser, West Virginia, doesn't specify West Virginia as the location, the song he co-wrote in 1950 originated here among the peaks of the Allegheny Mountains.
While growing up in Mineral County, Rollins had to care for his mother, who had been blinded by glaucoma. She wrote poetry, and so did he, Rollins’s grandson James Busemeyer recalled in an interview with journalist Doug Imbrogno. After hearing her son’s poetry, Imbrogno says Rollins’s mother suggested he might put some of his words to music.
“It was her who said ‘Maybe you ought to put some music to it," Busemeyer said of his grandfather. "She always encouraged him quite a bit. He felt very close with her.”
Yet, Rollins didn't engage in full-time songwriting until after age 40 while working as a baggage handler in New York City. There he met Steve Nelson, with whom he won fame a year before publishing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.”
Rollins afterward moved to Hollywood, where he wrote the lyrics for the US Forest Service's campaign for “Smokey Bear.” Rollins added the ‘the’ in "Smokey the Bear" as he was otherwise unable to fit “Smokey Bear” into the lyrics.
"Frosty the Snowman" was first covered by Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys in 1950 and afterward by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and a host of other crooners.
“Mountain Stage” host Larry Groce recorded a version in 1976 for one of his Disney children’s records.
Rollins died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1973, at age 66, and is buried in the Queen's Point Cemetery in Keyser.
Three holiday light displays attract visitors to Point Pleasant area
Three holiday light displays near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, are attracting sightseers to one of the most scenic sections of the Ohio River valley. Exhibits at Point Pleasant’s Krodel Park, at the West Virginia Farm Museum, and at Gallipolis City Park in Gallipolis, Ohio, have become part of the circuit of displays favored for their variety. Read the full story here.
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