Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [363]
5 “dark things”: Dundy, Elvis and Gladys.
5 “fast”: Pid Harris, Mississippi Room Collection, Lee County Library (MRC), probably from the papers of Elaine Dundy.
6 “Gladys got herself”: Dundy, Elvis and Gladys.
6 “Conversion hysteria”: Whitmer, Peter O., The Inner Elvis.
7 “she could not move”: Annie Presley, quoted in Whitmer, Peter O., The Inner Elvis.
7 “Back in them days”: Annie Presley to Peter O. Whitmer, raw interview transcript.
7 “Just a roof”: Annie Presley, quoted in Burk, Bill E., Early Elvis: The Tupelo Years.
7 “In all of our church services”: Reverend Frank W. Smith, quoted in Burk, Bill E., Early Elvis: The Tupelo Years.
8 “Gladys was in and out”: Annie Presley to Peter O. Whitmer, raw interview transcript.
8 “Your belief in God”: Whitmer, Peter O., The Inner Elvis.
8 “Gladys didn’t like my attitude much”: Vester Presley, as quoted on the Web site Elvis Australia.
9 “When Mertice”: e-mail, Roy Turner to author, 2009.
9 “She was a very strict disciplinarian”: Joseph Presley, as quoted in Dundy, Elaine, Elvis and Gladys.
10 “When that was gone”: Annie Presley to Peter O. Whitmer, raw interview transcript.
10 “Was he being stingy”: Tony Stuchbury to author, 2009.
10 “When he’d get off of work”: Annie Presley to Peter O. Whitmer, raw interview transcript.
11 “Roses are red”: Elvis Presley’s poem, Mississippi Room Collection, Lee County Library (MRC), probably from the papers of Elaine Dundy.
12 “Vernon thought he was a stud”: Lamar Fike to author, 1993.
12 “I think it’s time”: Gladys Presley, as quoted in Burk, Bill E., Early Elvis: The Tupelo Years.
12 “Jessie, drunk out of his mind”: Billy Smith to author, 1993.
13 “more than half dead”: Whitmer, Peter O., The Inner Elvis.
13 “Some of the congregation”: Janelle McComb, quoted in Clayton, Rose, and Heard, Dick, Elvis Up Close.
14 “nobody really knows”: Joe Savery, quoted in Clayton, Rose, and Heard, Dick, Elvis Up Close.
14 “When I stumbled on”: e-mail, Roy Turner to author, 2009.
14 “I was doing a documentary”: Ibid. Roy Turner to author, 2009.
14 “People say”: Billy Smith to author, 1993.
15 “Gladys had”: Unnamed cousin of Gladys Presley, Mississippi Room Collection, Lee County Library (MRC), probably from the papers of Elaine Dundy.
15 “Gladys ruled her house”: Lamar Fike to author, 1993.
15 “My mother”: Elvis Presley, press conference titled “Press Interview with Elvis Presley.” Brooklyn, N.Y. Source: “Elvis Sails” EP, September 22, 1958.
15 “It sounded like”: Magnolia Clanton, quoted in Dundy, Elaine, Elvis and Gladys.
16 “The services”: Annie Presley, quoted in Burk, Bill E., Early Elvis: The Tupelo Years.
17 “After about three hours”: Roy Turner to Piers Beagley, Elvis Information Network, May 2008.
17 “It was a small church”: Elvis Presley, quoted in the Saturday Evening Post, September 11, 1965.
17 “Gladys used to laugh”: Harold Loyd, quoted in Clayton, Rose, and Heard, Dick, Elvis Up Close.
17 “While pregnant”: Peter O. Whitmer to author, 2009.
18 “uttering a forged instrument”: Guralnick, Peter, and Jorgensen, Ernst, Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music.
18 “They were drinking”: Billy Smith to author, 1993.
18 “Maybe J.D. thought”: Ibid.
19 “The warden made him a trustee”:This is not precisely clear. A penitentiary record dated February 6, 1939, the day of Vernon ’s release states, “Sergeant Day says his record is good; not a trusty [sic], but nothing against his record. Maude.”
19 “action nightmares”: Unnamed Presley relative, quoted in “The Boy Who Would Be King,” by Steve Dougherty, This Is Elvis: Special Collector’s Edition of TV Guide, August 2002.
CHAPTER TWO
21 “The money was repaid”: Orville Bean, letter to Governor Hugh L. White, December 16, 1938.
Orville Bean’s letter, which was found in the Parchman Penitentiary archives in 2008, also provides the clearest picture of the crime. “An application of Vernon Presley for pardon,” as Bean termed it, the letter reads in full:
Dear Governor:
This young man plead [sic] guilty at the May Term, 1938, of the Circuit Court of Lee