Minnie Pearl

Minnie Pearl. Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon. One of the most recognizable artists in country music for 50 years, Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, professionally known as Minnie Pearl, developed gentle and affectionate comedic routines about the people she had known growing up in Centerville and those she met later on the road. Rarely absent from the Grand Ole Opry from 1940 until her retirement in 1991, she became a nearly unchanging presence as music and society transformed around her. "Our jokes," she said, "and the customs we portray stay the same. People like it because it gives them a sense of security.", Born in Centerville on Oct. 25, 1912, Colley was the youngest of five daughters of a sawmill operator, Thomas Colley, and his wife, Fannie. The family had moved to Centerville from Franklin, Tennessee, in 1897. Fannie quickly became involved with local organizations, encouraging Sarah's later civic engagement., Tom Colley took railroad ties to the Grinder's depot on the Centerville branch of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. Traffic was routed to a small siding at a switch that became known as Grinder's Switch, a location that Sarah Colley later made into Minnie Pearl's hometown., The Colleys' business suffered during the Great Depression, forcing Sarah to set aside her ambition of attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, going instead to Nashville's Ward-Belmont College for a two-year drama program. Returning to Centerville, she taught speech, piano and dancing before working for an itinerant community theater company based out of Georgia. In Sand Mountain, Alabama, Colley lodged with a woman whose mannerisms she adapted into her "Minnie Pearl" character. She debuted Minnie Pearl in Aiken, South Carolina, in 1939, but set aside her ambition to be an actor to return to Centerville as a WPA-funded children's recreation room director. At a Lions Club gathering she reprised her Minnie Pearl act and was seen by a local banker who knew the manager of the Grand Ole Opry. She passed an audition and became a regular Opry cast member in December 1940. "I would never be a great dramatic actress," she concluded later. "I was Minnie Pearl.", As Minnie Pearl, Colley developed the role of a gossipy small-town spinster, populating her skits with fictive family and neighbors, like "Brother," "Uncle Nabob," and "my boyfriend, Hezzie." She dressed in below the knee gingham, Mary Jane shoes, and a straw hat with a $1.98 price tag. In 1942, after she began appearing on the networked portion of the Opry, she introduced herself with the trademark "How-DEE.", In 1947. Colley married a commercial pilot, Henry Cannon, and they eventually settled on Curtiswood Lane in Nashville, next door to the governor's residence. For 30 years, she traveled on Opry touring shows, working with all of the era's major stars, including Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, both of whom she came to know well. She appeared on many television shows as a guest, and starred on "Hee Haw" from 1969 until her retirement., Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1975, Colley gave her last performance in Joliet, Illinois, on June 15, 1991. She died on March 4, 1996. Throughout her life, she contributed her time and money to many charitable causes, notably cancer awareness. In 1991, Nashville's Centennial Medical Center renamed its oncology department in her honor.