Minnie Pearl's Legacy: Hope for the Stricken

7/29/2019

Minnie Pearl

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon

I learned something very nice today.
We were listening to NPR and heard about a young woman who has chosen innovative treatment for sickle-cell anemia.

The hopeful procedure is about to take place in Nashville, America’s new hot destination town, in the Sarah Cannon Research Institute.

Sarah Cannon.
Long ago, several times, I met a wise and mannered lady of Nashville named Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon.

People on the Grand Ole Opry knew her as Minnie Pearl, who bustled onto the stage with a country dress and a straw hat with a price tag always hanging from the brim, and the familiar greeting of, “How-DEEEEEEE!”

She was a novelty act – a comedienne, not a singer, not a picker, not a looker in that outfit – but also a mainstay of the Opry. Others came and went but Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff were almost always there, with a presence that spoke of the establishment.

Many of her fans knew she had a degree (a rarity for women, in her youth) from Ward Belmont College (Now Belmont University) and was one of the grand ladies of Nashville. But on Saturday evening they wanted to see and hear her bumpkin persona, lamenting how she could never attract “a feller.”

One time I met her was in 1975, at the Nashville premiere of Robert Altman’s movie, “Nashville.” A lot of the in-crowd was bad-mouthing the movie as making fun of the Opry, but a few people seemed to see the vision and art of the movie.

Dotty West, redhead and singer, told me, “It's not a put-down. It's a fine picture, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.” And Mrs. Cannon gave me a tactful quote: “very interesting—maybe I'm too close to Nashville—this is my home, my family—I can't make a judgment now.” I thought she was letting me know that she got it.

I knew Mrs. Cannon had passed but did not know the details until today, when I looked up her connection to the hospital. It turns out she had undergone a double mastectomy in the mid ‘80’s, and had a stroke in 1991, and died in a nursing home in 1996, at the age of 83. At some point her name was on the hospital, now part of a broader chain of hospitals, most in the border-state region.

Now, at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Music City, a young woman seeks relief from a crippling and murderous condition that disproportionately affects African-Americans.

Victoria Gray, 34, from Forest, Miss., is at the Sarah Cannon institute, having volunteered for the gene-editing CRISPR technique to treat a genetic disorder.

"It's a good time to get healed," Ms. Gray told NPR in an exclusive interview, noting that she cannot move her arms.

The interview did not identify Sarah Cannon as the grand old face of the Grand Ole Opry, but I recognized her name.
I want to add that I always loved being around the Opry, and that I am delighted, in a very ugly time (and that is all I am saying; you know what I mean), Mrs. Cannon’s life is being used to bring hope to people who suffer from this horrible condition.

As Ms. Gray is being treated in Music City, may she hear a word of earthly healing: “How-DEEEEEEE!”

NPR article:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/29/744826505/sickle-cell-patient-reveals-why-she-is-volunteering-for-landmark-gene-editing-st

Sarah Cannon Research Institute:
https://sarahcannon.com/about/index.dot

Sickle-cell anemia:
https://news.nnlm.gov/scr/sickle-cell-anemia-predominant-among-african-americans/

Bio of Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon:
https://www.vacationsmadeeasy.com/NashvilleTN/articles/MinniePearlBiography.cfm

My article about Nashville’s reception for the Altman movie in 1975
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/10/archives/nashville-has-mixed-feeling-an-nashville.html?searchResultPosition=1

Victoria Gray. Photo by Meredith Rizzo/NPR

Ed Martin

7/29/2019 04:46:24 pm

Your humanism is what first drew me to your columns. Thanks.

My friend John, “Bud” Parnell, now departed, was an acoustic engineer, often studying airport noise, etc. He claimed his career highlight was working on the new Grand Old Opry auditorium. He was called in because the acoustics were “too good,” it did not sound like the old one on the radio broadcasts. I asked him what he did, and he replied, “I made it sound like a tin can.”

“In the Light, Victoria Gray.”

George Vecsey

7/29/2019 05:01:57 pm

Ed: The Ryman had (still has) magic dust in the air. Its sound should have been made permanent...glad your friend messed with it.
It's still standing downtown. I went to the new Opry a few times on business....it was like the new "Yankee Stadium" -- Yankeeland/Opryland. Theme park. The Ryman is the real deal.
Great memories backstage chatting with Cash/Carter, Skeeter Davis, assorted pickers --so democratic -- while show went on. Altman caught the spontaneity of the old country music. Gone now.

Thor A. Larsen

7/29/2019 10:27:51 pm

Fascinating article, George!! An inspiration for those suffering from Sickle Cell disorder. And now, you sensitize me to visit Nashville!

Thanks for the article!

THor

George Vecsey

7/30/2019 03:56:23 pm

Ed, I forgot to say, Thank You.
Thor, great to hear from you. I always loved Nashville, when I lived in Louisville...a few hours apart on I-65. It's having a boom...wave of bright and energetic and younger people are moving there -- not just pickers and singers and songwriters as in the past, but techies and educators and restaurant people. I see photos downtown and cannot believe the new buildings. One daughter and partner went to Nashville for a long weekend recently and they loved it -- found just enough traces of places I knew. GV

Thor A. Larsen

7/30/2019 07:19:13 pm

Yes, George, Nashville is high on our list, as soon as we stop going overseas! Our daughter, husband and their two sons, 11 1nd 13 went there last autumn and all had a great time. both boys play guitars so, the music themes inspired them and were so happy to have traveled that far by car from NY City.

igens link

8/12/2019 03:52:50 am

this is the really nice to read all this information, Actually i don't no more than this. but after reading this I am able to under stand this. thanks

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Minnie Pearl's Legacy: Hope for the Stricken

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