We carry the stories of famous people in the back of our minds. Most of the time we know only part of the story. The death of Loretta Lynn this week brought out a part of her story that I had not known. I guess what I had known came from her autobiographical song, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and perhaps from various news stories I have read over the years. She wrote multiple autobiographies, but I have never read any of them. I’m not a huge fan of country music, though there is plenty of country music that I appreciate. I listened to Loretta Lynn on the radio and television. But I never learned her full story.

I knew that she was from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. And because Nashville is such a center for country music and because her ranch and public attraction is located in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, I associated her story with that part of the country. The part of the story that was new to me is that when she was 15 years old, Loretta Webb married Oliver Lynn. They had met only month earlier. They moved to Custer, Washington, which at the time was a logging community. Her first public performances as a singer took place at the Custer Grange Hall. Among other venues of the beginning of her career were a couple of places in Blaine, Washington.

I know where the Custer Grange Hall stands. I drive by it nearly every day. When we head to Ferndale or on to Bellingham, we go down Bay road until it turns southeast and becomes Vista Drive. At the corner of Grandview Road, we turn east toward the Interstate highway. Some days we continue on Vista Road into Ferndale, depending on where in town we are heading. Just east of that corner where we make the decision stands the Grange Hall where Loretta Lynn began her public singing career. These days there is a Taco Truck that parks next to the Grange Hall six days a week. They serve very good food and there is usually a line of folks waiting to buy their lunch. Custer isn’t much of a town these days, but our grandchildren attend the Custer school and we know our way around the town.

And our mailing address is Blaine, Washington. Our neighborhood often considers ourselves to be our own community. Birch Bay has a few restaurants and shops and our own waterfront. But we are in the Blaine School District and our mailing addresses are Blaine. We go into the town of Blaine on a regular basis and it is one of the places where we take guests when they are visiting so that they can see the Peace Portal at the Canadian Border.

The years have passed. Loretta Lynn wasn’t famous in the days when she lived here. Once she was discovered, she started her recording career in Los Angeles and she lived in a few other places along the way.

If she were singing in the area today, the Grange Hall is no longer a venue for live music. There are no concerts or dances held in the old building. I don’t think it is active as a grange chapter any more, either. I’m not sure what the building is used for these days. There are a couple of places in the area where live music is held. Beach Cat Brewing, within walking distance of our home, hosts live bands most weekends. And there are several places in Blaine where there are live singers from time to time. Blaine has several outdoor festivals that feature live music each year. One of those festivals, Oysterfest, is this weekend and features three different live music groups performing.

Of course our paths didn’t cross. Loretta Lynn moved from this area a long time before we arrived. Four of her six children were born before I was born, so I really belong to the generation of her children, though she was very young when she started her family.

What strikes me is that way back in 1948, just after the Second World War, a pregnant teenager and her husband moved all the way from Kentucky to Northwest Washington. That’s 2640 miles across eight states. It is a long ways to make a move these days, and it must have seemed a lot longer back in those days. The expense of the trip would have been significant, and the move must have meant that opportunities to return home and visit family were infrequent. The young couple didn’t have a lot of financial means in those days. Airline travel was just getting organized. The Interstate Highway system had not yet been built. In those days, it was a significant trip just to go to Seattle from Custer. One of Lynn’s breakthrough performances was a music contest held south of Seattle, in Tacoma, where she won a watch. More importantly, she gained the recognition of people in the music business and her performance led to her first recording.

Part of the public story of Loretta Lynn is how her success and her particular style of music were born out of hard times. She didn’t come from people with lots of money. Her folks were working class. She had a lot of struggles in her life. it is interesting to note that one of the waypoints on that journey is the area where I now live.

The radio stations have been playing a lot of Loretta Lynn the past three or four days. It is part of the tribute they want to make and the memories they want to retain as we mark the passing of someone who provided meaningful music for a lot of people in the span of her career. I’m sure that “Coal Miner’s Daugher,” “Me & Patsy Kicking Up Dust,” and Brenda Willis’ “Biography of Loretta Lynn,” will be popular at the library for the next few months.

I’ll have to take a special look at the Grange Hall when I drive by later today to see if anyone has placed a memorial or remembrance at the site. Probably there aren’t many people who remember her singing there. Though we never met, our stories have crossed, and I have another memory to add to the list and another story to tell.

Thanks, Loretta.