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| Herman, Loretta and Crystal |
Ask any county music fan who their favorite female vocalist
ever is and you'll get back a chorus of "Loretta Lynn." Naturally Butcher
Holler tops the list of "ole home places" to visit in Kentucky. It's a real
experience especially for someone like me who grew up with a cement back yard.
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| Herman displays some of the things Loretta prized |
My first stop was the shrine of all country music fans, Butcher
Hollow, home of Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle. Having
read the book and seen the movie several times, I was excited to get the opportunity to
see for myself, close up and in person, the land and the people that molded a Coal
Miners Daughter into the Queen of Country Music.
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Herman on the homestead porch |
I was not disappointed. Loretta's brother, Herman Webb,
gives the tour along with a few antidotes about the hardscrabble existence of the
Webb family. The cabin is tiny especially when you realize ther were eight children in the
Webb family. It's small and dark but when you look at all the pictures, you see what
Loretta meant when she sang, "We were poor but we had love." Sure enough, the
"well where she drew water" is still in the front yard. I asked Herman when the family realized that
Loretta had a special talent. He replied, " We all sang. Shoot, she was just one more
kid with a loud mouth around here."
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Sarah McCoart sings for us |
Herman took us through the house and then brought us back to his
modest general store for a moon pie and old fashioned soft drink. Loretta's niece,
Sarah McCoart, sang "Coal Miners Daughter" for us. Although she is not yet in
her teens, she had already performed with her famous aunt. It's easy to see where the
next generation on Nashville greats will come from.
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Doctor's office in Van Lear Museum |
We also got a good look at a miner's life. The tiny
entrance to the mine where Loretta's dad "shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar." It was
not a vocation I would want to pursue but millions of hard-working men still mine much the
same as it was done a generation ago. Unions have improved like somewhat but it's
easy to see the life of a singer looked so good to Loretta, Crystal and lots of Kentucky
men and women who followed Kentucky's Music Highway into Nashville.
Contrary to popular opinion, Butcher Holler is not a town: it's
an area located just outside the hamlet of Van Lear. Van Lear was established by the
Consolidation Coal Company and named for one of the directors, Mr. Van Lear Black. The
former country store is now the Van Lear Museum which is delivered equally to Loretta and
Crystal, life in a mining town, complete with the doctor's office who delivered
Loretta's babies, and a coal miner's life.
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Icky's is a trip down memory lane |
Next door to the museum is the local hangout where Loretta and
Mooney used to meet. Icky's has more 50s memorabilia then you ever saw in one place.
Today, tourism has
replaced mining as Van Lear's top industry. Folks travel from all over to view the
place made famous by movies and songs. Standing in that low ceilinged, rustic cabin I
realized this is not just an old homeplace, it's a shrine and its patron saint is a
hard working woman who used her talent to change "a Coal Miner's Daughter"
into a legend in her own time.
THE VAN LEAR HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC.
P.O. BOX 369 VAN LEAR,
KENTUCKY 41265-0369
e-mail : admn@vanlear.org
Phone : (606) 789 - 8540
