Our View: Patsy

Fifty years ago this evening, in a driving rainstorm, a Piper Comanche went down in a dense Tennessee forest. The nation lost a star, and this city a daughter.

Though her short and, at times, meteoric career would take her to the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and her dream of the Grand Ole Opry, Virginia Patterson Hensley, known to the world as country-music songstress Patsy Cline, seldom failed to let her audiences know that she hailed from “Winchester, Va.” This city was her home, and she, for all our mixed feelings (of long measure) about her demeanor and style, is our girl.

Patsy is a gift that keeps on going, largely because of a voice that grows more appealing as the years pass — forever rich, resonant, warm. And because she was, warts and all, Patsy — brassy and larger than life and, at the same time, tender-hearted and generous. She is our American Original.

And so it behooves us to remember the woman who gave us “Crazy,” “Sweet Dreams” and “Walkin’ After Midnight,” this week especially. So take a tour of her Kent Street home (today through Saturday), or stop by the Half Note Lounge at “The George” on Saturday for a musical celebration of life, or attend a commemorative service Sunday at Omps Funeral Home’s South Chapel near her burial site.

Take the time, remember a local girl who dared to dream.