To raise money, instead of liquidating real estate assets that she owned, Mary yielded to pressure from -- guess who -- to relinquish the song publishing companies that Jim founded. This gutted Jim Reeves Enterprises from a financial and morale standpoint and Mary never recovered from either. The scandal also was in the headlines and besmirched her public image in Nashville, which was probably even more important to Mary than the financial losses.

I'm not certain that 1957 is the correct date of that photo. I tend to think it appeared in a magazine earlier than that, but I don't have the time to go digging into my files to pin that down. Sorry. Maybe somebody else has more info on it.