Richard Hyatt: 'Silent Night' tradition continues

The song belongs to the world but it was part of Samantha Mohr's family lore when she was growing up, a Christmas carol composed by an ancestor whose words are almost as familiar as Scriptures that describe the night shepherds keeping watch over their flocks were visited by a heavenly host.

Those angels didn't sing "Silent Night" but they could have, for its ageless verses describe a holy night where calm and peace override a world burdened by angry chatter.

Joseph Mohr wrote the poem in 1816. Two years later, the Austrian priest shared it with the choirmaster in Arnsdorf where on Christmas Eve they discovered that church mice had silenced the organ.

Franz Gruber wrote the music and with Mohr on guitar, they performed "Silent Night" for the very first time, birthing a tradition that even now is repeated in great cathedrals and cozy churches around the world.

Her late father, John, told Samantha this story when she was a little girl in Columbus. Seven generations had passed and Austria seemed far away but Samantha understood the beauty of that song.

"It was our claim to fame," she said.

Samantha Mohr found her own fame. She was Miss Columbus 1985 and in 1986 she was Miss Georgia and competed in the Miss America Pageant. After college she followed a childhood interest in the weather by studying broadcast meteorology.

TV has taken her to Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, the Weather Channel and CNN. These days she reports the weather at WXIA in Atlanta. Wherever she went the story of "Stille Nacht" has followed.

She was host of a morning show in Arizona and her mother, Marylou, a longtime Columbus schoolteacher, came to visit. "We sang 'Silent Night' at the end of the show. Later, the owner of a German restaurant remembered us singing. To her, it was like the National Anthem or 'Amazing Grace.' She said when we sang 'the tears came down and down.'"

Father Joseph was penniless when he died in 1848 and for years his role in writing the song was unsubstantiated. Discovery of an old manuscript made him a national treasure.

Samantha Mohr treasures him when she stands in a crowded church on Christmas Eve, holding a single candle near her face and singing words written 199 years ago. "I revisit him every year," she said.

-- Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906@knology.net

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 7:50 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: 'Silent Night' tradition continues ."