What do we know about Miss Mary Mack?

[auRa]

I’ve learned a strange hodgepodge of these rhymes. I guess when you’re at an international school, you get hit with things from all directions. Ours was always Miss Lucy, and she had a baby, but then we also had a second verse which went straight for the potty humor kids love and which I’ve never heard anywhere else.

Miss Lucy had a baby
his name was Tiny Tim
she put him in the toilet
to see if he could swim.
He swam down to the bottom
he swam up to the top
Miss Lucy got excited
she flushed him down the pot.

We would start with Tiny Tim in the bathtub, then Tim in the toilet, then go on to the steamboat etc.

[Biggirl]

In my neck of the woods, there were 3 different rhymes. Miss Mary Mack was a hand-clap game. Miss Suzy had a baby that she either put in a bathtub or a piss-pot. Miss Lucy owned a steamboat. The rhythms of these three rhymes were different from each other as were the melodies.

[Captain_Amazing]

@samclem

You can see the first cite of the counting rhyme(in the U.S) that I could find(1887) using Google Books.
It’s rhyme #795, contributed by a person from West Chester, Pa. and says–
The Counting-out Rhymes of Children - Henry Carrington Bolton - Google Books

Regarding those last two lines, there’s a childrens song from Northern Ireland (I think there are also variants in the rest of Ireland and England) that I think dates from the 19th century that starts:

I’ll tell my ma when I get home,
the boys won’t leave the girls alone;
They pulled my hair and they stole my comb,
but that’s all right till I go home.

[schnuckiputzi]

@Chicken_Fingers

I always wondered about the lady with the alligator purse, though. She was like a demi-goddess in these kinds of rhymes. (My mother called the doctor. My father called the nurse. My sister called the lady with the alligator purse.)

Yes! In central Illinois, Miss Suzy had the baby, and eventually the lady with the alligator purse got called in on the case. Who in the heck was she supposed to be?
And in our version, there was no pot, just a bathtub.
He drank up all the water,
He ate up all the soap
He tried to eat the bathtub
but it wouldn’t go down his throat

Miss Suzy called the doctor
Miss Suzy called the nurse
Miss Suzy called the lady with the alligator purse.

Mumps, said the doctor
Measles, said the nurse
Neither, said the lady with the alligator purse.

Wise woman.

[Northern_Piper]

@Captain_Amazing

Regarding those last two lines, there’s a childrens song from Northern Ireland (I think there are also variants in the rest of Ireland and England) that I think dates from the 19th century that starts:

Regarding those last two lines, there’s a childrens song from Northern Ireland (I think there are also variants in the rest of Ireland and England) that I think dates from the 19th century that starts:

Quote:
I’ll tell my ma when I get home,
the boys won’t leave the girls alone;
They pulled my hair and they stole my comb,
but that’s all right till I go home.

The Irish version of this this folk tune is often called “The Belle of Belfast City.” The Rankins and the Chieftains/Van Morrison have both recorded it.