I rather like the idea of turning famous people's homes into memorials, whether it be Harry S Truman's former home in Missouri or Graceland where Elvis lived. Granted he also died there, but at least it is large enough to accommodate the crowds.
The big mistake was not to inter Jim Reeves in Nashville, where he made music history. As it is, he is hidden away in some remote location in east Texas that is off the beaten path and you have to really want to go there to get there. Whereas if Jim's statue had been erected in Nashville, it would still be a visible reminder of this great artist.
On the one hand you can cite the fact that Mary had quizzed her husband as to where he wanted to be buried if anything happened to him, and Jim declined to answer -- saying only that he was sure Mary would know when the time came.
On the other hand, Mary said in a series of published and broadcast interviews in the aftermath of Jim's death that for years she had contemplated the possibility that something would happen to him. "The odds are against you," she told me, and "studies show most accidents happen within five miles from home." I can still remember sitting in Jim's Caddy with Mary behind the wheel as she made this comment.
So this begs the question: if Mary had given this subject so much thought ahead of time -- what to do in case Jim got killed -- why didn't she think this through better? She told Tom T. Hall's wife, Dixie, that her decision to bury Jim in Texas was very well thought-out, and that she took into consideration what the effect would be ten or 20 years down the road. Well, her speculation turned out to be wrong.
Because the minute those mounds of dirt were piled on Jim's grave in that forlorn, wind-swept former pasture out in the middle of nowhere in Texas, many people in Nashville forgot him.
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