Joe Vanderweerd and his daughter Laura play Come Walk With Me during a performance in Morell in March 2023. Laura was killed in a road accident nine months later. (Submitted by Trish Vanderweerd) Trish Vanderweerd remembers the times when company would come, and her husband Joe and teenage daughter Laura would grab their guitars and play a special family song together.
Come Walk With Me was based on a poem about nature that Joe's sister, Emma Walsh, wrote in a Christmas card one year. Laura loved it, and set it to music. One night, her father recorded her singing it.
"I remember thinking, 'Why is he doing that?'" Trish Vanderweerd recalled. "But he was a proud daddy and he still is a proud daddy. And we're ever so grateful that he recorded a few other songs, and those are just memories.
We often play it and it's comforting." Tragically, Laura Vanderweerd died in a two-vehicle collision in December at the age of 18. Three other young people and the driver of the other vehicle also died in the crash, which left the entire province shaken and grieving for the families.
Roadside crosses painful but important reminder of Marshfield tragedy, victim's mother says About six weeks later, Joe Vanderweerd approached John B. Webster of the P.E.
I. band Fiddlers' Sons. Webster had lost his teenage son in a farming accident 23 years ago, and at first, he thought Vanderweerd might be looking for advice on how to deal with such a tragedy, he told Mainstreet P.
E.I. 's Matt Rainnie in an interview.
Fiddlers' Sons is made up of (from left) John B. Webster, Eddie Quinn and Keelin Wedge. The band recently released a new CD featuring Laura's Song.
(Submitted by John B. Webster) But Vanderweerd wasn't aware they shared a similar grief. He was there for another reason — to show him the video of Laura singing Come Walk With Me , and ask if Fiddlers' Sons would perform it at one of their concerts, or even record it on a CD.
Webster was touched. "It might have been partly the emotion of the moment, partly her wonderful voice — just a gorgeous voice, Laura had. And I said, 'I'm definitely on board.
'" 'They've done an excellent job' Fiddlers' Sons renamed the song Laura's Song. With Eddy Quinn on vocals and some fiddle mixed in, the band played it March 12 at the Kings Playhouse in Georgetown, with the Vanderweerds in attendance. Trish Vanderweerd said it was a bittersweet moment: "I love hearing my daughter play it and sing it — you know, that's a special thing — but they've done an excellent job with that song.
" It is a song of nature and we as a family love spending time in nature. But our daughter can't sing it anymore. — Trish Vanderweerd Vanderweerd said it was a challenge for some of her family members to share the song with the public, but it was "the right thing to do," they eventually decided.
"It is a song of nature and we as a family love spending time in nature. But our daughter can't sing it anymore." Mainstreet PEI 12:48 New Fiddlers' Sons CD Love Don't Divide is the name of the new recording from much-loved Island band Fiddlers' Sons.
Group member John B. Webster stops by to share an emotional song and the story behind it. The song is featured on the latest CD from Fiddlers' Sons, Love Don't Divide .
Webster said they began writing songs for the CD in 2020, but the project was sidetracked by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Laura's Song gave them the motivation to push ahead and finish the project. 'Music kept me going' Webster said he can relate somewhat to how the Vanderweerds might be feeling.
When his son Alex died at the age of 16, Webster took a year off from playing and "just disappeared." During that time, he wrote a song for Alex called Eagles Fly , which gave him the inspiration to start playing again. "Music kept me going through some tough days, I'll tell you.
So I'm hoping that our little bit here that we can do for the Vanderweerd family...
will have an impact on their lives and help them through this." Fiddlers' Sons plays Thursday nights at the Hillcrest United Church in Montague until the end of September..
