It was just two years after my boy John had been killed in France.

It had been a hard thing for me to gae back upon the stage.

I'd been minded to retire then and rest and nurse my grief.

But they'd persuaded me to gae back and finish my engagement wi' a revue in London.

And then they'd come tae me and talked o' the value I'd be to the cause o' the allies in America.
When I began my tour it was in the early winter of 1917.