Patsy-Cline

by Frank M. Roberts

July 2016

There's a photograph in the house with this inscription: "To mom, we really made it." 'Mom' is Hilda Hensley. The daughter more than made it. She became, arguably, the finest, and most imitated singer in the history of country music. The name? You probably guessed it: The inimitable Patsy Cline.

In more than half-a-century in this reviewing-interviewing business I never got to meet her. I did meet a few of the ladies who are running around the country imitating her in their shows. Best of all, I got to meet Patsy's mom. It was interesting, fascinating- but it was tough to get started.

A photographer friend, and avowed Cline enthusiast, John Shealy II (a Morgan race car driver who I will spotlight in a later story) and I spent two days in the singer's hometown of Winchester, VA. - a hometown which, her mother said, never treated her famed daughter right.

When he was racing in nearby towns, John always tried to meet Hensley - sometimes boldly sitting on a glider in her front porch, swaying back and forth just as Hensley's daughter did when she was a little girl growing up in the very modest South Kent Street home.

The little girl became a legend when she was a big girl, and John wanted to talk to the legend's mother to reminisce with her about the daughter she loved - the singer he idolized.

Hensley, though, was adamant about staying out of the spotlight. Cline's daughter, Julie Fudge, who lived with her grandmother, described her as, "a very simple person who would always say, 'don't do a lot for me' And, she would always say, "no interviews."

A few days before Christmas, 1998, John and I spent two days in Winchester, VA. doing a story for a national magazine which had carried several of my stories. We talked to Patsy's friends, her favorite drug store, some folks at the local radio station- the people with whom she worked, and other folks who remembered her.

Every couple of hours, between those interviews, we would drive to the Hensley house, knock on the door and wait for the response that never came. At the end of our second day there, and just before we were to return to our homes we decided on one last knock.

To our amazement, Hensley came to the door. We told her, talking through the screen, what we wanted - as if she didn't know. The conversation continued, getting to the point where she decided she trusted us and, to our happy surprise, invited us in. It was well known she abhorred the press which often featured her daughter's escapades. 'Nuff said.

Her lack of enthusiasm for the press was overcome by her enthusiasm for talking about her daughter, but it had to be off the record. (There's a phrase that makes every reporter grimace). And, she would have to give approval for the photographs John wanted to take.

There were tight restrictions, but after 12 years of trying, John was not about to argue the point. He entered the living room as if he were entering a shrine.

Hensley, who was 80, seemed comfortable with us, even apologizing for being barefoot, explaining that her feet were swollen.

We talked and talked about Patsy Cline who was killed in a plane crash 35 years before her mother's death two years before our visit.

"The night before Patsy was killed, she called and said she just wanted to come home to see the kids," referring to Julie and Randy.

Unashamedly, Hensley cried as she talked to us about her loss and about her daughter's hard-won success, noting that "Walkin' After Midnight," hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart only after her death.

That first gold record came after her "12 Greatest Hits" hit the 500,000 sales mark.

Cline's three gold and four platinum records were displayed on her mother's living room wall. Hensley was proud of them, but wanted us to see something not on display, something close to sacred.

"I have something special to show you," she said. She went upstairs and came back down clutching a brown paper bag. "I haven't shown this to anyone but my family and you."

She opened the bag and bought out a heavy, impressive-looking crystal. It was indeed special - Cline's Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award presented in 1995 during a ceremony also honoring Peggy Lee.

Hensley went to California for the presentation but the trophy was not given to her until the awards program went off the air.

She told us that the woman who made the presentation called her two weeks later, and said that Cline's husband, Charlie Dick, wanted the award.

"The woman asked me if I could send it to him. I said I could. I didn't say anything else," Hensley said. "She got the message and hung up."

The Winchester Chamber Of Commerce would also love to have the crystal and other Cline-related items for its museum. Hensley said that her daughter had been snubbed by the town because she came from the wrong side of the tracks. Now, it was her turn to snub. She talked of establishing her own museum.

Cline made her home in Nashville where she recorded such hits as, "Crazy," and "I Fall To Pieces." The sound was easy listening country.

George Crump in, "A History of Country Music In Hampton Roads," describes the Cline sound as, "a countrified version of pop and blues singers like Kay Starr and Billie Holiday."

Owen Bradley was the producer credited with creating that sound. "bringing out the pop qualities in Cline's performances," according to Andrew Vaughan's, "The World Of Country Music," which notes that Cline broke loose in 1957 and became the country music queen by 1959.

She was a star, and the world was in love with her - except for her hometown.

"If you lived on the wrong side of the tracks, you didn't count," Sheally said. "In the poor part of town they cheered Patsy. On the other side of town, they put her down."

That was illustrated one year, he said, when the singer rode in the city's annual Apple Blossom Festival parade. Hensley remembered the incident.

"Patsy was excited about coming back and singing at the drive-in," she said, fighting tears. "People blew their horns and booed her."

Sheally said, "Winchester only discovered Patsy when the movie, "Sweet Dreams" came out."

The 1995 film netted an Oscar nomination for Jessic Lange, but Hensley did not like any of it because the film showed Cline's salty side.

An HBO critic hailed Ann Wedgeworth's portrayal of "Lange's salt-of-the-earth mom."

That is an apt description of Hensley whose life seemed to have been like a country blues song about broken homes, broken hearts.

She had constant run-ins with Dick, who was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that his mother-in-law, "was full of life, just like Patsy was."

There was no love between Hensley and Dick, just as there was no love between Hensley and Winchester.

She told John and me about the paternal family's annual celebration of her daughter's birthday, when Dick came to the Patsy Cline Museum to sell t-shirts, and they would visit Cline's grave.

Hensley was never invited.

The maternal side of the family was occupied with the Patsy Cline Foundation which gave annual musical scholarships to needy students. Hensley had served as president.

Another story illustrating the family rift concerned Cline's hand-written will stating that a third of her possessions would go to herhusband, a third to the kids. Tennessee law says that a surviving spouse can accept a will, or disavow it, Hensley said, noting that Charlie disavowed it.

"I didn't get anything. I live on Social Security," she told us. "It makes no difference. I never had any money - I wouldn't know what to to with it."

Hensley said that because of Dick's actions, she got a lawyer who petitioned for Patsy's clothes and personal jewelry. At least, until the day of our interview, she had never received the jewelry.

She did get the clothes, and that was as it should be, because Hensley, an excellent seamstress, made almost all of them.

They were upstairs. We waited until Hensley came back down carrying several dresses Cline had worn, including the best-known - a red cowgirl outfit.

Hensley often talked about her daughter's "big heart. She would do anything for anybody, whether she had money or not. A lot of times, she'd buy groceries for needy people and leave them on their front porch.

"She talked all the time about loving Charlie, despite him being an alcoholic and an abusive husband," Hensley said. "More than anything, Patsy loved her kids."

Hensley talks with more respect about her first son-in-law, Gerald Cline. "Patsy sat down with him one day and told him he was holding her back in her musical career," she said. "He told her that if she felt that way, he would give her a divorce.'

Hensley remembers her daughter saying, "Momma, I'm traveling all over the country in big and little airplanes to do my job. I don't think I'll make it to 30."

She was 31 when she was killed, and the music world lost one of its greatest artists.

"People always ask me, if I had my life to live over again, how would I do it," Hensley said. "I tell them I wouldn't - it's been too hard."

P. S. Meeting this lady was not only a rare occasion - it was a purely exciting event. Both of us intrepid interviewers have pictures of ourselves holding some of Patsy's 'made-by-mom' outfits. They are rare pix we cherish. Of all the people I met in all the years in this business - Hensley, a sweet, sweet lady got closest to my heart.

P.P.S. This is by no means intended as a Cline bio. It is simply our observations of a day with her mom, containing facts and thoughts you will find nowhere else. Bios abound, all containing the same facts. Thanks.