Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry
It being a couple of weeks ’til Christmas in 1952, Daddy said on Saturday morning, “Boys (to the four of us boys) it’s time to go up on the hill and look for a Christmas tree.”
I was seven years old and had spent the previous year with my grandparents in Columbia, Alabama. I had some medical problems and at that time there was not a doctor locally, so my parents sent me to Southern Alabama where there was medical help seven miles away. A year of better food and care brought me back to better health. My mother had three younger boys to look after. Plus, she had her hands full.
Daddy had put a farm together and was still trying to make it support our family.
But getting back to December 1952, we were having good times as a family, planning for the holidays, us boys hoping for cap pistols with at least one pack of caps to fire as we played cowboys and Indians. We also looked forward to one orange, a banana and plenty of Winesap apples as Daddy would buy a 40-pound box and a bunch of bananas every Christmas. We could expect a stick of peppermint, horehound and tutti-frutti stick candy for each of us boys.
Well, we went up on the ridge and finally found the right cedar tree to be our 1952 Christmas tree. We cut it, took it home and decorated it. Back in 1952 nobody would put up a Christmas tree ’til after Thanksgiving. The up-town stores in the small towns didn’t put their Christmas displays in the windows until after Thanksgiving. Back then everyone had a shorter and better holiday spirit.
Time marched on. School let out for Christmas, but in early December we had an 8 to 10-inch snow. It started snowing about 9 a.m. and by the time school let out for the day the school buses could not run because of the heavy snow.
My Dad had the first Jeep in Union County. He bought it new so that he could attend the agricultural class at Horace Maynard High School at night on the GI Bill. He knew that a car or pickup would be useless during the winter, and he saw that a 4-wheel drive Jeep would handle the snows that we had starting every November thru March back then.
Daddy picked up all the kids from Rose Hill Elementary School and took them home with the Jeep and a big part of all the small rural school students that night.
He didn’t get home until 2:30 a.m. the next morning. Back then we didn’t have a television with weather reports to keep us informed about weather. We knew that snow would be with us all winter but not when.
Christmas came and we boys got our cap pistols, a piece of candy and some apples, bananas and stick candy. By today’s standards we got very little, but we appreciated what we got. We did not complain.
Next comes New Year’s Eve of 1952 which was a Wednesday night. Little did we know that early that night a tragedy was taking place at the Andrew Johnson Hotel on Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, that would shock the world and end the short six-year professional career of the most beloved song writer and country singer that has ever lived.
His name was Hiram Williams, born in Mount Olive, Alabama, on September 17, 1923. He later acquired the nickname of Hank Williams.
Hank and his 17-year-old driver Charles Carr were at the Andrew Johnson Hotel because a snowstorm covering a large portion of the Appalachian Mountain all the way to Hank’s two show dates at Charleston, West Virginia, and then to Canton, Ohio. New Year’s Eve came on Wednesday night in 1952.
I talked to David Farmer, a co-host of mine on the Country Connection Radio Show on WYSH and WQLA Radio who has interviewed Charles Carr at different times about that night in 1952. Charles Carr said that all the “stories” that’s been told of Hank’s last day on earth are just not true as he was there with Hank.
The promoter of the shows ordered Charles Carr to load Hank in the Cadillac convertible and start for Canton as it was too late to make it to Charleston, West Virginia, because of the weather. Carr said that a bellhop helped him load Hank into the back seat of the Cadillac and that Hank was not speaking. Hank had a shot from the hotel doctor before being loaded into the Cadillac. Carr told David Farmer that Hank never spoke again.
Carr was driving north on Rutledge Pike, passed a car who sped up and would not let him drop back into the right lane and he met a southbound car who had to leave the road. Swan Kitts was in that southbound Highway Patrol car. He turned around and stopped Carr in the Cadillac, gave him a reckless driving ticket, and asked him who was laying in the back seat.
Carr told him it was Hank Williams. Then Kitts told Carr that he looked dead. This was Wednesday night New Year’s Eve 1952. Carr proceeded on and the next morning, which was New Year’s Day, Carr tried to wake up Hank Williams in Oak Hill, West Virginia.
Hank was pronounced dead at Beckley Hospital in Beckley, West Virginia, on New Year’s Day in 1953. Rigor mortis had already set in. Hank probably died the previous night, somewhere between the Andrew Johnson Hotel and Rutledge, Tennessee.
Hank Williams’ passing left a large hole in the hearts of rural America. We all loved his songs played on the radio stations for the last six years. Hank was crowned the “Shakesphere of Country Music.”
His songs were composed of the simplest words and phrases, but were extremely complex. All except Hank’s band members along with Fred Rose did not know that his songs mirrored his private life.
There is much more, David Farmer and I could tell about the great entertainer, but word restrictions here will not let me do so. If any group or association wants more, David and I are willing to give sessions with questions and answers afterward. Email: jperry4631@comcast.net.