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Five Life Lessons in Violet

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About 15 years ago, my writing path took me into the life and times of an amazing woman.

I have co-authored three autobiographies, and with each one I have learned so much. Through other people’s lives and experiences, lessons pile up like cordwood near the axe stump. These lessons can sneak in through a story or a moment—through a waterfall of tears or a bucket full of sunshine and smiles.

 Randall Franks and Violet Hensley

Maybe that is why I drew so much joy out of bringing someone’s life to the page. Through the images created by the words, people may be moved to change their lives and find a new path after seeing how someone else has walked.

I met Violet after watching her electrify an audience when we were both being honored by the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum as Legends in 2010. At 94, she was much farther down that legend road than I, as I was the youngest among the honorees.

More than a year later, circumstances led me to try to convince her to tell her story in a book. So we began, week after week by phone, crafting nearly ten decades of experiences into something I hoped might inspire.

Slowly, Whittlin’ and Fiddlin’ My Own Way: The Violet Hensley Story came to life, page after page.

Early in our conversations I realized her childhood days were filled with survival, but to her that was simply the way it was—you took those things in stride. That doesn’t mean there weren’t smiles and happiness, work, and even childhood games; she’s the first to tell you there were. Her childhood also gave her skills such as fiddling and fiddle-making, along with the perseverance that would serve her and make her known around the world.

Lesson One: Hard work as a child prepares you for living life.

The death of her mother struck me as a lesson I have taken to heart: despite a hardworking, caring mother being taken, one must pick up and keep going.

Lesson Two: We must keep on living for those who leave us behind.

Writing about how George “Wash” Brumley let Violet help and watch him craft fiddles showed how, simply by watching, she picked up the skill herself. Violet would go on to teach what she learned to many others.

Lesson Three: Pass on your skills to the youth. Her life was filled with raising nine children and working to give them a start in life. Along the way, her skills brought her into the public eye, where millions came to see her share her talents as an artisan and a fiddler. It made her one of the best-loved folk artists of the Ozarks.

Lesson Four: Live as Jesus taught by lovin’ your neighbors and don’t get to thinkin’ you are better than anyone else.

She left us recently at 109, with her loving family around her and the world’s media paying homage to the passing of country music’s oldest living artist.

Lesson Five: Choose a path that you love and would love for others to follow, and then stick with it.

I am glad that God let me share a bit of a walk alongside Violet. She was a unique individual, and her amazing magnetic presence first drew the eye, then the ear, and finally—once you focused on her—the heart. Once she attracted you to what she was doing, you were a fan for life.

You can get her story from her family by visiting http://VioletHensley.com.

Words can inspire in many forms

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Writing is a constant companion to me. It has been since my early days in school. Perhaps it is something in the genetic make up passed along similarly as in my more well-known cousins whose works have inspired the world – Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, T.S. Eliot, and Edgar Allan Poe.

My efforts to string words upon a page so readers can cast their eyes and evoke a stream of thought or create an emotion, pale in comparison to the least of theirs.

For those of you who have journeyed with me in my 23 years of creating this column, I thank you for sharing your time in my continuing opportunity to reach you with what flows from my heart and mind.

Many of you have delved a bit farther by reading one of my non-fiction books or even my mystery “A Badge or an Old Guitar.” This year I plan to take readers into a new place with my novella “Southern Crossing” and hopefully inspire with a devotional.

My tenth book recently came out and it was my third co-author. I spent a year with 93-year-old former Ringgold, Ga. Mayor Joe Barger and his wife Barbara. My earlier works in this area were with entertainers Ramblin’ “Doc” Tommy Scott and Violet Hensley. A foray into metallurgical engineering, his occupation, was a stretch for me although I easily grasp the area of government and politics he also inhabited for 48 years.

“I worked closely with Randall while I was mayor, I knew there was no one I trusted more to help me chronicle my 93 years and share Barbara’s and my story,” he said in an interview following its release.

Hearing this was uplifting to me. Joe and I served side by side for six years on the city council. I was his vice mayor. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we found the best way forward for our city’s residents and businesses.

As part of the book, I spent weeks at the city hall. I read all the minutes from his 48 years in office and transcribed what I felt he might like to share and then we worked through the years adding context and stories about the people he worked with and those that lived in the town.

He was introduced to Ringgold by joining a college friend on a trip back home in the 1950s. He would later land a job with Combustion Engineering in Chattanooga, Tenn. which began his passion for metallurgy, he said.

Though the North Carolinian loved serving his neighbors, he wanted to write about his professional experiences as a metallurgical engineer to share some of his wisdom with future generations of welders.

“There were so many lessons that I learned as Combustion Engineering allowed me to develop new patents on so many applications to enhance what we did in nuclear energy development,” he said. “And there are many simple aspects of welding that I thought might help other young welders. I wanted to write some of that down.”

After serving in army intelligence during the Korean War, Barger returned to Ringgold to marry the love of his life and regain his position at Combustion, he said.

“My job took me around the world solving problems and sharing the success of what we were doing for Combustion in Chattanooga,” he said. “I couldn’t asked for a better company to work for or a better bunch of people to work beside helping light up the world.”

Working closely with Joe and Barbara on this book has been one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Their story is in many ways, the story of small town America. I think his book will be a great resource for anyone who might like to look back at what Ringgold was and how it got to where it is today.

“Testing the Metal of Life: The Joe Barger Story” by Joe Barger and Randall Franks is a 496-page book featuring over 550 photos and is available at www.RandallFranks.com/Joe-Barger .

Whittlin’ and Fiddlin’ My Own Way by Violet Hensley with Randall Franks

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243b2f156cbb02b5520e5fda9858df7c_plf5Whittlin’ and Fiddlin’ My Own Way by Violet Hensley with Randall Franks

$26.50





I never thought I would be writing about my life, my music and my fiddle makin’,” she said. “I could have never dreamed coming from a farm in the backwoods of Arkansas that the things I learned on that farm would make me a TV personality and gain me fame around the world.”

The Arkansas Living Treasure Award winner from Yellville, Arkansas learned to fiddle in 1928 and make fiddles watching her father George W. Brumley in the community of Alamo, Arkansas in 1932.

Hensley joined in a three-year effort with award-winning journalist and author Randall Franks, “Officer Randy Goode,” from TV’s “In the Heat of the Night,” to complete her memoir.

“It was an amazing experience to work with Violet weekly to refine the experiences from her life and compile a book which not only reflects what many rural families endured in America in the 20th century but what was most unique about Violet as she grew artistically, to find folk music stardom at nearly 50.”

He said Hensley raised a family of nine with her late husband Adren while he moved the family from town to town and state to state.

“With the advent of the folk music revival, Violet’s blossoming musical and fiddle-making talents, caught the attention of Grammy ® winner Jimmy Driftwood and the owners of Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri,” he said. “She joined the crafter’s cast at Silver Dollar City in 1967, becoming part of the City’s celebrities who used radio, television, and newspapers to invite visitors to the amusement park.”

Peter Herschend, Herschend Family Entertainment co-founder and owner, said Violet is one of the City’s most unique citizens.

“In the early years of Silver Dollar City, Violet, Don Richardson and I, along with an interesting assortment of the City’s colorful characters, would spend weeks on the road together…all devoted to promoting SDC,” he said. “I came to know Violet for the amazing wonderful woman that she is. She would amaze us with stories of field plowing with her mules. Then a new Violet would seem to appear when she would sit for an interview with some grizzled reporter (reporters who probably didn’t believe she was real), and she would proceed to win them over with her charm, her skills as an artist, and her talent as a musician.’

Sharing her talents in front of millions, Hensley became one of the first woman fiddlers to reach a large international audience appearing at the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife, festivals, colleges, and on countless local, regional and national television and radio shows such as “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Captain Kangaroo,” and “Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee.” according to Franks.

“I hope folks will enjoy getting a glimpse at what my near century on this world has been,” she said. “It’s been a hoot so far and what’s even better is while the book is written – the story continues. I hope folks will join me for what is yet to come, they can start by reading the book.”

The 258-page soft cover book from Peach Picked Publishing includes 145 photos.

Silver Dollar City Folk Music Legend Violet Hensley shares 98 years of experiences from a backwoods farm to international folk music fame.

Snake Oil, Superstars and Me by “Doc” Tommy Scott, Randall Franks and Shirley Noe Sweisz

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9781425991890_cover.inddSnake Oil, Superstars and Me 

$38 including shipping



Autograph by Randall Franks? Please Provide Name?


“Doc” Tommy Scott, Shirley Noe Sweisz and Randall Franks
A 700- page autobiography with more than 500 photos highlighting Ramblin’ “Doc” Tommy Scott’s 90 years in Film, Television, Stage and Radio and all the superstars that were part of his life, show and career. We will pay postage and handling.

Tommy Scott (1917-2013) liked to tell the story of the time he met David Letterman, when the famous TV show host stormed off the stage because his own guest overshadowed him with his musical ramblings. Known for his rambling and roaming, this Hillbilly, western, country and bluegrass artist could never plant his roots in one place, so for a while he traveled and played the guitar, and later, he traveled and sold a cure-all remedy known as snake oil. The  entrepreneur, artist, and actor tells about his lifetime of personal discovery in his memoir, “Snake Oil, Superstars, and Me”

Different segments of his life can be labeled and described by his various nicknames. When he was just Tommy, the son of a farmer in northern Georgia, he decided he needed to make a name for himself in the music world. He escaped to join the Medicine Show, a musical and acting caravan that traveled across the U.S. There, he answered to the name “Peanut,” taking on the role of a guitar-playing clown. Next he was “Texas Slim” on a radio show, where he infused comedy and music with his ventriloquist doll-partner, Luke McLuke making his way to star on the Grand Ole Opry in the 194os. And then he was “Rambling Tommy,” a guitar player and music composer. Later in life, he became “Doc Tommy Scott,” selling snake oil as a medicine man in traveling exhibits.

No matter what name he went by, he always loved Frankie, a southern model and starlet from his hometown. When she took his last name, she became his “right hand man,” smoothing over rough business deals in her graceful way. The two wandered together when Tommy played and entertained many musicians in their home. As a young couple, they starred in a traveling show group and appeared in Tommy Scott shows that were later transformed into syndicated films and television.

Although he went by many names and lived many lives, one part of Tommy always remains the same. He loved igniting a crowd and hearing the roaring applause. He didn’t particularly love the praise, but he loved the response. He claimed snake oil is a cure-all remedy in his traveling shows, but even if it isn’t medically proven, Tommy cures the audience with gales of laughter.

“If you think it will help then it will,” Scott’s mentor advised him once. “If you have the faith for it, the liniment will stop the pain while the herbal treatment sets you to running! One thing for sure, though, if you visit a medicine show, for an hour and a half you will leave your burdens behind.”