On Sunday, March 3, 1963, Patsy Cline met in a small backstage room at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas, with a young widow named Ann Call and her two sons, 11-year-old Don and 8-year-old Dan. Before the visit ended, she bent down and kissed both boys. About 48 hours later, Patsy Cline was gone, killed when a small private plane crashed in the woods near Camden, Tennessee.
Most country fans know Kansas City was where Patsy Cline played her last show. Far fewer know the family she came to sing for.
The Man Patsy Came to Honor
The boys’ father was Jack Call, known to his listeners as “Cactus Jack.” Born in Trenton, Missouri, in 1923, he served as an Army staff sergeant in World War II, then made his name in country radio and TV in Sedalia, where he hosted a Sunday show called Cactus Jack’s General Store.
In 1957 he moved to KCKN in Kansas City and became the station’s first program director. Later he worked at KANS, and in January 1963 he joined KCMK-FM, helping turn it into a country station. The country artists who came through town knew him well.
On January 24, 1963, Jack Call’s car and a truck collided in Independence, Missouri. He died the next day. He was 39 years old.
How the Benefit Came Together
Call’s former colleague Guy Smith wanted to do something for the family. He went to singer Billy Walker, a Grand Ole Opry member, and Walker reached out through Randy Hughes, who managed both him and Patsy Cline. Walker later told The Kansas City Star that he “started twisting arms.”
The result was three shows at Memorial Hall on March 3, at 2 p.m., 5:15 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets were $1.50 for adults and 50 cents for children. The bill included Billy Walker, George Jones, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Dottie West. Oddly enough, a newspaper ad that morning did not even list Patsy Cline’s name.
A Small Room Backstage
Decades later, both brothers could still describe the visit.
“I remember her white dress and her red lipstick.” — Dan Call, recalling March 3, 1963
Patsy Cline bent down and kissed both boys. Her lipstick was heavy. Don Call has recalled that he tried to wipe it off, and it only smeared.
Ann Call remembered something more. According to her, Patsy talked about the head-on car wreck that nearly killed her in June 1961 and wondered why she had been spared. Ann later described her as beautiful, outside and inside.
A Snapshot Pried Loose With a Nail File
One more person got a few minutes with Patsy Cline that day. Mildred Keith was a Kansas City fan who had been photographing country stars since the 1950s and kept the pictures in a scrapbook the performers called “The Book.” She had been asked to bring it.
A security guard carried the scrapbook backstage. About an hour later he came back for Mildred, knocked on a door and said, “Patsy? Mildred’s here.” The door opened on Patsy Cline in a long white dress and fire-engine-red lipstick. “Girl,” she told Mildred, “you have a treasure.”
Inside that scrapbook was a photo of Jack Call. Patsy Cline wanted it. Mildred Keith later recalled taking out a nail file, gently working the snapshot loose from the page and handing it over.
Mildred then asked for a picture of her own. Patsy Cline stood against a backstage brick wall, and Mildred took a single frame. Over the years it became known as the “last photograph” of Patsy Cline, although at least one performance photo from that night has also surfaced.
Three Shows, Three Dresses
Patsy Cline was sick that weekend; several accounts say she had the flu. She sang all three shows anyway, changing into a light blue dress for the first show, a red one for the second and a white chiffon gown for the 8 p.m. finale.
Dottie West watched the shows. In the documentary The Real Patsy Cline, she remembered that white chiffon dress and said Patsy “sang the fire out of it.” She also said Patsy was really happy that day.
According to biographer Ellis Nassour, Patsy Cline closed her final set with “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone,” the last song she had cut at her final recording sessions in February. It was the last song she ever sang on a stage.
The Fog and the Flight Home
On Monday, March 4, fog closed in over Fairfax Airport, and Randy Hughes’s small plane could not leave. Dottie West offered Patsy Cline a ride back to Nashville with her and her husband, Bill, a drive of about 16 hours. Dottie West later recalled that Patsy turned her down and told her, “Don’t worry about me, Hoss. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.”
Her husband, Charlie Dick, put it simply: “She was just tired of being anywhere except home.”
On Tuesday, March 5, Patsy Cline boarded the plane with Randy Hughes at the controls and Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins as fellow passengers. That evening it crashed near Camden, Tennessee, about 90 miles from Nashville. No one survived.
What the Call Family Carried
Ann Call worked in a school cafeteria in Independence for more than 20 years. Both of her boys grew up to become ministers, and Dan Call went on to teach at The King’s University.
Ann died on January 25, 2013, at the age of 83. It was 50 years to the day after she lost Jack.