H. F. Gault
(Glendale Man's Song Chosen as One of the Best of the Month)
Story furnished by Clarence Crocker
On April 2, 1948, the Spartanburg Journal announced that Mr. H. F. Gault, an employee of Glendale Mills had been informed that his popular musical composition, “Wrapped Around Your Finger” would soon be heard in orchestral debut over one of the nation’s largest radio stations.
Forney, as he was known and called around Glendale, had been employed many years as cloth warehouse bookkeeper and shipping clerk by D.E. Converse Co./Glendale Mill Division and had taken up musical composition as a hobby. He was informed that the song would be played for the first time over station WWSN, Pittsburgh at 8:15 Thursday evening April 8, 1948.
United Music Inc., an organization of lyric writers and composers, informed Mr. Gault that his composition had been especially selected for the station’s “Composer’s Clinic” broadcast. He was also informed that the Songwriters Review listed the song as “one of the best new lyrics of the month” in it’s March issue. The announcement stated that Hugh Disher, Watsonville, Calif. musician, chosen competitively by United Music, set the composition to music for vocal and orchestral rendition.
Mr. Gault told the Spartanburg Journal reporter that he had been “swamped by a deluge of mail” from composers and musicians in the States and Canada since the song had been published.” He said, “I have been writing song poems all my life but have always had to work for a living, so what I have done, it was a hobby. It’s a hobby I enjoy very much, it’s restful, inspiring and relaxing, it takes a working man into a new world.”
Mr. Gault related how he had written poems for the Spartanburg Sunday Herald and Journal and how as a young man at Wofford College, he wrote several poems for the Wofford Journal.
Mr. Gault was the son of Rev. Sidney D. and Harriett Burgess Gault of Wilkinsville in Cherokee county. He first married Miss Maggie Lillian Thomas, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Thomas of Glendale and was a teacher in the elementary school at Glendale for a number of years. Mrs. Maggie Gault died at the age of 29 on December 27, 1916 following a 10 week illness.
Her obituary published in the Spartanburg Herald stated that she was survived by her husband, Mr. H. F. Gault; her parents; one sister, Miss Mary Thomas and the following brothers, J. H., D. B., L. S., and L. H. Thomas; Funeral services were conducted in the Glendale Baptist Church with Interment following in the Glendale Community Cemetery.
Mr. Gault’s second marriage was to Maude LeMaster Gault, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John LeMaster of Glendale. (a distant cousin of this writer) They became the parents of three daughters.
Mr. H. Forney Gault died at his home in Mobile, Ala. Saturday September 10, 1960 at the age of 73. He had moved to Mobile after retiring, some 8 years before his death. He was survived by his wife, Mrs. Maude LeMaster Gault; three daughters, Mrs. George (Elizabeth) Beirshenk of Spartanburg, Mrs. Dan Chandler and Mrs. Ken Chandler, both of Mobile, Ala. and one sister, Mrs. F. C. Ledbetter of Spartanburg, S. C.
His funeral was held in the Glendale Methodist Church where he was a member with interment following in the Glendale Community Cemetery.
This web site has been started as a public service to share the story of Glendale. See more information about Mary and her Glendale connection at Mary McKinney Teaster.