Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [80]
Well, we organized this benefit for March 1, 1971, and we held it in Freedom Hall in Louisville, which can hold over 15,000 people. We got more than forty performers from Nashville. Over forty radio stations carried it.
I went around for a month beforehand, publicizing the benefit. I’d talk about it during my show, then I’d fly to Hollywood or New York and go on a talk show just to plug my benefit. I’d try to get the hosts of these shows to talk seriously about the sad life of a miner. It ain’t easy being serious on these talk shows, if the hosts just want to make fun of your language or hear hillbilly stories. But I think I got my message across anyway.
People say I did it for publicity or something. Well, let me tell you, friends, I spent over $10,000 out of my own pocket just flying around between dates. And another thing, this was at the time when I was starting to break up with the Wilburns, and my health was starting to go on me.
Finally the night came. The Greyhound bus brought the families up from Hyden. Colonel Sanders, the real Colonel Sanders—he’s from Kentucky himself—gave out free dinners.
The show wasn’t organized as well as it should have been, because of Doyle Wilburn not being in good shape. The widows were seated off to the side somewhere. During the early part of the show, they actually threatened to walk out if they weren’t treated better. It was all a misunderstanding, but David Skepner, who was working for Music Corporation of America at the time, had to do some fast work to make everyone happy. There was a lot of tension, but Doolittle got the show done with a lot of good country music and speeches and appeals for donations.
We heard that money came in from as far away as Canada, Sweden, and the Bahamas. One joker in Macon, Georgia, fancied himself a big steel executive and pledged one million dollars. Before we could check it out, somebody announced it over the microphone, and everybody went crazy. They were all figuring out the good things they could buy with a million dollars. But later it turned out the guy was just being funny at our expense, and we tried to explain to the widows that it was just a bad joke.
We also thought we were getting things for free that we weren’t—for example, we had to pay to rent the hall. Then we found out there were unpaid funeral bills, and the attorneys figured they’d better clear them up first. Everyone thought we had over a million dollars, but our expenses ran higher than I would have liked. A few people charged us expenses for every phone call they made for months; meanwhile, I was paying for my own airplane trips. Anyway, when all the bills were paid, we still had around $91,000.
This money was in a trust fund to go for education for the widows and their children. But about a week later, we heard that some of the widows wanted their share of the money right away. Well, I could understand that: they had bills to pay and kids to feed. But that wasn’t what we gave that benefit for. We wanted to do something special. We held out and didn’t give ’em the money, but the widows kept asking for it. They’d call up my office or make a statement to the press that Loretta Lynn was taking their money. I know how they felt, they didn’t do it for meanness. It just tore me up. It was hard to believe they’d turn on me.
They kept after my lawyers until finally, in 1972, my lawyer advised me to split it up. You’re gonna be driven crazy, he told me. He said I’d have to put up with it for the rest of my life.
Only one of those children received any education from the money. We split the money into thirty-eight equal shares of around $2,400, and that was it. I don’t know what they did with the money. Since then I’ve heard some of ’em remarried, which is good, because nobody should be alone; and I’ve heard some of them ran into trouble in their little towns. They got to be known as the “rich widows” because of the insurance and benefits.
Anyway, I tried to do something at Hyden and I’m sorry we didn’t succeed. But if any of these people