Music Appreciation

mahatmakanejeeves

(64,456 posts) Mon Mar 10, 2025, 12:52 PM Mar 10

On this day, March 10, 1963, Patsy Cline's funeral was held in Winchester, Virginia.

SWEET DREAMS

By Dorothy McGhee September 29, 1985

THE DAY THEY BURIED Patsy Cline -- March 10, 1963 -- her home town of Winchester, Va., came to a virtual halt. For nine of her brief 30 years, Patsy Cline had crooned her country tunes at every church, armory, Moose Club, American Legion Hall, outdoor park, race track, drive-in, beer joint and radio station from Winchester to Washington before moving to Nashville to become America's number one female country vocalist. Her fans from Maryland, West Virginia and Washington -- the ones who loved her before the rest of America discovered her -- had come to say goodbye in person.

Jones Funeral Home in Winchester, where her body, or what remained of it, lay in state was so crowded that they had to close the doors to a thousand fans out on the street. The casket was locked tight and a photo of Cline lay on top. As the maroon hearse wound its way five miles to Shenandoah Cemetery that cold, clear day, the road was lined with people, heads bowed. Men removed their hats. "It was tremendous," recalls the Rev. Nathan Williamson, who conducted the services. "It was something very unusual: all those crowds, and so respectful, too." One pallbearer told reporters at the time: "Patsy was like a religion with them."

Just before her violent death, Cline had made it big -- real big -- in Nashville. She had hits like "Walking After Midnight" and "Crazy" and even bigger ones like "I Fall to Pieces" and "Sweet Dreams," which ran to the top of the country charts before crossing over to the pop charts. In 1962 she had been named Top Country Female Singer by the music vendors of America. Music Reporter dubbed her Star of the Year.

There were enough flowers at the grave site to ransom a queen. Jack Cummins covered the funeral for the Winchester Star. After the final benediction, he reported, a few people reached out for flowers from the grave site to take home as souvenirs. "The effect of the first stolen flowers hit the crowd like an electric shock," he wrote. "The people -- jammed in close to the small tent over the grave -- began snatching literally from the side of the grave, everything and anything they could lay their hands on, short of the gold finished coffin."

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