Suzanne Rent continues her series of profiles of women over 50 who, in their own often quiet ways, make significant contributions to our society outside of the corporate world.
In March 2020, Darcell Cromwell got a couple messages from friends that would soon have her connecting with people well beyond her home in Three Mile Plains, just outside of Windsor.
That was the month the country when into lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and people were at home isolating. Churches were closed, too, so Cromwell’s church friend, Bob DeMont, sent her a text that said, “go online and sing.”
“I wrote back, ‘are you crazy, man?’” Cromwell recalled in an interview. “I’m not going to do that.”
Then Cromwell got another message from her friend Debbie Bowers in Toronto encouraging her to record videos of herself singing and playing the piano. Cromwell’s friends knew she could spread some much needed hope and joy during those first isolating months of the pandemic.
So, Cromwell, who is now 66, got her iPhone, sat at the piano in her living room, and recorded herself singing old hymns and spirituals: “This World is Not My Home,” “Somewhere in Glory You’ll Find Me”, “What a Day That Will Be”, “In the Sweet By and By”, “There is Power in Your Blood”, and “Amazing Grace.”
She posted the videos to Facebook, including to the group the Ultimate Online Nova Scotia Kitchen Party, where other musicians and singers were sharing recordings of their performances during the pandemic. That group currently has more than 249,000 followers.
The response to Cromwell’s videos was immediate, with hundreds of shares, comments, and likes on each video. Soon, people started sending in song requests, and Cromwell would play those songs, too.
“I am humbled by people asking me,” Cromwell said. “To me, I’m just sitting down and playing and I make a lot of mistakes in it, too. Even if I wasn’t doing the videos, when I sit down at the piano, you feel good. Everybody needs that.”
Almost four years later, Cromwell still records those videos, three performances a week: Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10pm, and every Sunday morning before she goes to church.
She has followers across the world and started keeping track of where those followers live. She has several pages of lists titled “Places heard from while doing COVID-19 videos” broken down into columns titled Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario/Quebec, Prairies, U.S., and other. In that other list, are cities in Australia, Wales, South Africa, Ireland, England, Qatar, and more.
She started copying and pasting some of the comments on her videos on Facebook, too, but stopped when she got to 600 comments.
Cromwell said she knows why people are responding to her videos during the early months of the pandemic and why they still love them.
“People are searching, people are hurting. For some reason, they are finding comfort in the words that are being sung because you don’t hear them anymore. People don’t go to church like they used it. They just don’t do it. Through this avenue, they don’t have to leave their homes,” Cromwell said.
“I really think people are searching. They’re looking for the answers in other areas that aren’t helpful to them. You know, whether it’s booze, whether it’s drugs, whatever it may be. People are hurting and we see what’s going on in the world around us.”
‘You have to feel what you’re singing’
Cromwell started singing and playing the piano when she was a young girl growing up in Three Mile Plains. The house she lives in now sits on the the family homestead that once belonged to her mother, Madeline Sampson, who was a single mother raising nine children.
Cromwell can’t read music, and plays songs by ear. She used to sing with her sisters, Starr and Delphina (Feenie). She even won a talent contest once when she sang Tammy Wynette’s 1968 hit country song D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Cromwell was 12.
But Cromwell has long sang and played piano and the organ in churches, first at Windsor Plains United Baptist Church, where she attended as a young girl, and then various other churches over the years, including New Horizons Church in Halifax.
When I visited her at her home, I asked if she’d play songs for me, too. She chose two spirituals “Oh, Freedom” and “Down by the Riverside.” She doesn’t have sheet music, but instead has pages of the lyrics she puts in front of her to follow along.
Her piano, which was given to her by her friend Betty Reddick, sits in the corner of her living room. Above the piano hangs a painting called “Old Time Baptism” that she bought at the Sears Bargain Basement years ago.
When Cromwell sings and plays these songs, you can hear the hope, the joy even, in her performances. Her soprano voice reaching out while her manicured nails occasionally click on the piano keys.
Cromwell has had a chance to educate her listeners on the old African spirituals she sings. Many of these songs contained code that slaves used when travelling the Underground Railroad. These are songs of freedom.
Cromwell said lines such as “I ain’t gonna study to war no more” may have started with slavery but people still understand the meaning now in a world of conflicts.
A line in “Oh Freedom” says “there’ll be shouting” but Cromwell said that shouting isn’t vocal, but the way in which parishioners swing their arms in a march.
Cromwell said she will learn newer hymns, but it’s the older hymns she prefers.
“There’s something about those old hymns that get you back into the feeling, the spirit,” she said. “You have to feel what you’re singing, otherwise it doesn’t mean a thing.”
Some of the followers of her online videos have contacted her to ask her to sing for funerals.
“One lady was listening to me and she was diagnosed with cancer and later died. Jane Manuel was her name, from New Brunswick,” Cromwell said. “I never met her before, just online.”
The morning Manuel died, her daughter contacted Cromwell after she found a text from her mother saying how Cromwell helped her through her illness. Cromwell recorded and sent her a video of “What a Day That Will Be” for Manuel’s funeral.
Another woman from Canso whose mother passed away contacted Cromwell, too, asking her to send along some video performances. She sent videos of her singing “Amazing Grace” and “In the Garden.”
‘Sister, where have you been?’
Last summer, when Cromwell and her husband Leonard were in Digby having lunch, a woman recognized her and came up to their table and asked for a hug. The woman told Cromwell she had helped her when she lost her husband.
“I really, really enjoy it. I am just sitting down doing what I like to do. If it’s helping somebody, in some way, that’s all that matters to me,” Cromwell said.
Every Sunday this December, Cromwell has been filling in as the worship team director at Windsor Baptist Church. She said that’s a new title for choir director. But she will play at other churches, too.
Recently, she went to a tiny country church in Wile Settlement and when one parishioner recognized her, he asked her to play the piano and sing. She performed “Count Your Blessings.”
“There were 11 people there. That’s it. But the love and the spirit in that place was unbelievable,” Cromwell said.
“This man in the front row, Dennis was his name, when I finished he said, ‘Sister, where have you been? I thought the Rapture was coming!’”
‘Please keep wearing your hats when you sing’
Cromwell gets dressed for each video performance. She wore a hat for the second video she recorded and now her followers expect it.
“Yes, child. Yes, you’ve got to get dressed,” Cromwell said. “They’re looking for the church hats now.”
Her hats match her outfits, which she complements with jewelry.
“Another beautiful song and hat! Please keep wearing your hats when you sing. I love them. Great job!” wrote follower Bonnie Hiscock-Gulliver on the video Cromwell posted on April 2, 2020.
Over the past few years, Cromwell has received hats from followers across the country, adding to her growing collection, which includes at least 60 hats now, all in vibrant colours and decorated with ribbons, appliqué, flowers, jewelry, and more.
A follower named Karen Tobin sent along a hat for Cromwell to wear. Another follower in Antigonish sent along a box of 11 hats that her late mother wore.
‘I like for people to just have a good time’
When Cromwell is not singing, she’s baking. She bakes bread, cookies, squares, tarts, and “pies, pies, pies, galore.” In July, she makes strawberry pies with fresh local berries. In October, she makes pumpkin pies. This Christmas, she made dozens of sweets.
Cromwell retired several years ago after working as an administrative assistant with counselling services at the Nova Scotia Teachers Union. Before that, she worked with what was then the Commission on Drug Dependency with the Department of Health.
She and her husband Leonard, a retired carpenter, have been married for 38 years. They have one son, Jeremy, who is 35. They love to host parties at their home for birthdays, after Sunday dinners, and on holidays.
And, of course, she sings and plays the piano. Those parties got smaller over the last few years, thanks to COVID, but people still come anyway. This Christmas Eve, Cromwell had a dozen guests at her home.
“We get to singing spirituals and whatnot,” Cromwell said. “Mind you, some of the people were three sheets to the wind. I said, ‘okay, you guys, I don’t know if you can be in my choir because you can’t carry a tune in bucket,’ but they’re singing anyway.”
“But people are happy. That’s what I like for people — to just have a good time.”
Sunday is the last day she will be the worship director at Windsor Baptist Church. She doesn’t know where she will play next, but Cromwell will certainly have an audience, online and off.
“As long as I can play the hymns, I’m good to go,” she said. “If it means something to somebody, if it helps them out, that’s what I’m all about.”
“That’s what I say at the end of my videos. Continue to pray for one another, but most of all do kind deeds for one another. We all have the love inside of us. We just have to get out there and spread it around. It’s no good if you keep it to yourself.”
I loved this. I remember seeing her and her beautiful hats during the early days of the pandemic online. So nice to hear this update and read more about her. Thank you.
Thank you for this beautiful article-this series is fascinating and deeply inspiring. Mrs. Cromwell is such a warm and kind spirit-I so appreciate how she shares her gifts and it’s no surprise so many have been touched.
What a great story. Thanks for sharing it. Happy New Year to all.