On the day of Patsy Cline’s memorial service in March 1963, Jack Anglin of the duo Johnnie & Jack stopped for a haircut before heading over. He was running late. In Madison, just outside Nashville, his car left the road, went down into a deep ditch and struck a tree. He was 46.
That morning he had already been to the services for Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Randy Hughes, the three men who died with Patsy two days earlier. Within a single week, Nashville’s country music family had lost five people.
A Benefit in Kansas City
The trip began as a favor. In early 1963, a well-liked Kansas City country disc jockey known as Cactus Jack Call had been killed in a car accident, and a benefit was organized for his family. On Sunday, March 3, Patsy Cline played three shows at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas, at 2 p.m., 5:15 p.m. and 8 p.m. She was fighting the flu. People who were there said her voice did not show it.
She was 30 years old and worn out. She had spent much of the previous year on the road, including a long run in Las Vegas, and she wanted to get home to her two children, Julie, 4, and Randy, 2.
Grounded
Patsy had planned to fly back to Nashville on Monday. Storms kept the small plane on the ground. Dottie West, who was driving back with her husband, offered Patsy a seat in their car. Patsy said no, went back to her hotel and waited for the weather to clear. West later recalled what Patsy told her.
“Don’t worry about me. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.”
Billy Walker had also expected to ride on the plane. When he needed to get home to his family sooner, Hawkshaw Hawkins gave him his commercial airline ticket. Hawkins took the seat on the plane instead. His wife, singer Jean Shepard, was eight months pregnant with their second son.
The Last Stop at Dyersburg
On Tuesday, March 5, Randy Hughes took off from Fairfax Municipal Airport around 2 p.m. Hughes was Patsy’s manager and Cowboy Copas’s son-in-law, and the Piper Comanche was his own plane. With him were Patsy, Copas and Hawkins.
They stopped to refuel in Rogers, Arkansas, then landed late in the afternoon at Dyersburg, Tennessee. An airport employee told Hughes that local conditions were marginal and that the weather at Nashville was below the minimums for flying by sight. Hughes held a private pilot’s license but was not rated to fly by instruments. He asked whether the Dyersburg runway was lit at night, said he would follow the Tennessee River east and promised to turn back if things got worse.
At 6:07 p.m., the plane lifted off into a low, gusty, overcast evening. No one heard from it again.
The Woods Near Camden
At about 6:29 p.m., the Comanche came down in a swampy, wooded area roughly five miles west of Camden, Tennessee, about 85 miles from Nashville. A man nearby heard a low-flying plane and then the crash. An early search that night found nothing.
Back in Nashville, WSM radio told listeners the plane was missing. Patsy’s husband, Charlie Dick, stayed home with the children. Roger Miller, who had been with him, drove out to help search. The wreckage was found shortly after 6 a.m. on March 6. There were no survivors. Federal investigators later concluded that Hughes had flown into clouds he was not trained to fly through, lost his bearings and lost control. The engine was still running when the plane hit the trees.
The Week Nashville Could Not Stop Grieving
Patsy’s body was brought home for a wake before she was buried in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia. Copas, Hawkins and Hughes were buried at Forest Lawn in Nashville. Patsy’s memorial service in Nashville drew Bill Anderson, Kitty Wells and Johnnie Wright, among many others.
Johnnie Wright had sung beside Jack Anglin for more than two decades. Jack was also married to Johnnie’s sister, Louise. Shortly after the service, Johnnie learned that his partner was dead, killed on the way to the same memorial.
“Sweet Dreams”
A month before the crash, on February 5, 1963, Patsy had recorded a Don Gibson song called “Sweet Dreams” with producer Owen Bradley. It was one of the last things she ever cut. The two reportedly argued about how it should sound before settling on the arrangement fans know today.
The single was scheduled for release on March 20, 1963, as the follow-up to “Leavin’ On Your Mind.” Patsy died fifteen days before that date. The record came out anyway, retitled “Sweet Dreams (Of You),” and became her last Top 5 country hit.
What Friends Remembered Afterward
In the months before she died, several of Patsy’s friends said her talk had turned dark. She had been thrown through a windshield in a 1961 car accident and had never quite shaken the feeling that her time was short. Friends recalled her saying she had survived two bad scrapes and was not sure about a third. She reportedly wrote out a will on airline stationery and began giving away some of her things. Singer Jan Howard said Patsy had even predicted that “Sweet Dreams” would be her last single.
These memories come from people who loved her and told them years later, after they knew how the story ended. They cannot be checked. What can be checked is the flight record from Dyersburg, the hole in the ground near Camden and the record that reached stores after Patsy Cline was gone.