06/22/2026
Happy Father’s Day
“Although everybody called the new baby Wynette (sometimes “Nette” for short), Mildred had named her Virginia in tribute to a nurse that had cared for her husband in a Memphis hospital. Just five months before Wynette’s birth, Hollice (left photo) had been told he had an inoperable brain tumor. “He was dying, and knew he was dying,” said Wynette. A lanky, dark-haired, handsome fellow, intense and unsmiling, he looks, in the few portraits I’ve seen, as if he could’ve stepped out of a Walker Evans photo. Hollice had dreamt of a career as a professional musician, and had even recorded two little demonstration records that hung on Wynette’s walls for many a year, but they were too beat up to extract a single note from. She’d never know what her father’s music sounded like.” - Jimmy McDonough
“Her feelings for Hollice Pugh took nothing away from her love of her stepfather, Foy Lee (right photo). The man I always called PeePaw was a wonderful stepfather. And Mom didn’t consider him a stepfather. In fact, the only time I ever saw her lose her temper and cuss someone out was over that very issue. This incident happened in 1988 when PeePaw was dying. Mom was at the hospital, trying to comfort MeeMaw, when a nurse made a remark about Foy “only being” her stepfather. Mom went nuts. She didn’t cuss as a rule, but this time the words flew right out of her mouth! She told that nurse in no uncertain terms that she had no !*%* #! business describing Foy Lee as “only” anything!” - Georgette Jones
Credit: Jeremy Garcia
