The Nelson Eddy Fan Club Beat 11, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, sixteen-year-old Aileen Kilgore and her pet Guernsey, Skinny Dugan, 1938 (courtesy the author).
I was sixteen years old and in the twelfth grade when I saw in the newspaper at school that Nelson Eddy was to appear in Birmingham. I yearned to go with all my heart but I lived in the red clay hills of Tuscaloosa County. What chance did I have? An amazing thing happened. The Frisco Railroad called my father to work third trick at Freight Yard Junction in Birmingham that night. He said he’d take me! I had forty-nine cents from typing for my teacher’s husband. Daddy gave me a penny to make enough for a gallery ticket. In my diary I wrote: “March 3, 1938, I spent most of the few minutes, after I found I could go, collecting my overcoat, our lunch, a scarf, and everything else I thought I’d need. All the way to Birmingham I was haunted by the dread there would be no gallery tickets left. The old Lizzie crawled along so slowly and every car that zoomed past I’d say to myself, They’re sho’ going.
“At last I got my first look at Birmingham. Daddy showed me Vulcan way, way across on the mountain. At the Tutwiler Hotel I was so busy looking around I didn’t notice where we were going. The little look-see I had was interesting! The man at the desk said the box office had been moved to the auditorium at five that afternoon. He told us how to get there and sent us out a side door he said so we wouldn’t lose our bearings--but maybe he wanted us to disappear quick, as we certainly didn’t fit in that glamorous setting.
“When we had come in the front, the revolving door had been moving so I thought it went automatically. When I stepped into the door on the way out, I started moving but it stood still. I got a crack on my noggin that made me understand I was supposed to push, and I did. We had to walk back to the car (two or three blocks) and try to find the municipal auditorium. We got caught in two or three traffic jams and finally stopped at a gas station to ask directions. He said we’d passed it. We tried to turn around and go back. Several cars got crossed and it seemed ages until we arrived at the place. I was a knot of anxiety but Daddy never once lost patience.
“There were crowds all out in front. Another age passed before we found a parking place and then Pop had to drive in several times before he had the lizzie fixed right. We walked three blocks back to the auditorium and went inside. I looked around at all those young men in tuxedoes and the women in evening gowns. We finally found a line in front of the ticket window. After standing there for fifteen minutes, inching up to the window the woman said, ‘Gallery tickets outside around the corner.’ When we got around there we had to stand in another line but I finally clutched the green ticket in my hand. Pop left and I scooted up about fifteen flights of stairs, presented my ticket at the door, and began searching for a seat. I had begun to think I wouldn’t find one but in the very last row there were several. All the while before it started I watched the young ladies below (miles below!) flirting around (also old ladies) in their long slinky evening gowns.
“When we had come in the front, the revolving door had been moving so I thought it went automatically. When I stepped into the door on the way out, I started moving but it stood still. I got a crack on my noggin that made me understand I was supposed to push, and I did. We had to walk back to the car (two or three blocks) and try to find the municipal auditorium. We got caught in two or three traffic jams and finally stopped at a gas station to ask directions. He said we’d passed it. We tried to turn around and go back. Several cars got crossed and it seemed ages until we arrived at the place. I was a knot of anxiety but Daddy never once lost patience.
“There were crowds all out in front. Another age passed before we found a parking place and then Pop had to drive in several times before he had the lizzie fixed right. We walked three blocks back to the auditorium and went inside. I looked around at all those young men in tuxedoes and the women in evening gowns. We finally found a line in front of the ticket window. After standing there for fifteen minutes, inching up to the window the woman said, ‘Gallery tickets outside around the corner.’ When we got around there we had to stand in another line but I finally clutched the green ticket in my hand. Pop left and I scooted up about fifteen flights of stairs, presented my ticket at the door, and began searching for a seat. I had begun to think I wouldn’t find one but in the very last row there were several. All the while before it started I watched the young ladies below (miles below!) flirting around (also old ladies) in their long slinky evening gowns.
"We finally found a line in front of the ticket window. ... I clutched the green ticket in my hand ... and began searching for a seat. ... in a few minutes Nelson Eddy himself strode out on the stage."
“The main lights went off and the spotlight focused on the piano. Everybody started clapping and in a few minutes Nelson Eddy himself strode out on the stage. I was very disappointed because I couldn’t distinguish a single feature of his face. I could tell he was blond and could see his figure distinctly but not his face. Most of his selections were operatic. I enjoyed ‘The Blind Plowman,’ and as an encore ‘Sweetheart, Will you Remember.’ I liked that one best of all. He sang it last and as we left everybody was humming it. I also remember one about a king wearing purple tights (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha) and one Monsieur Eddy said was about a French soldier who returned home to find that his sweetheart had married another man and he was ‘quite put out about it.’ When it was over (it seemed mighty short for fifty cents) I strolled into the bottom part and looked around. I found a program on the floor and, tucking it under my arm, I dashed up the street keeping an eye out for Pop. He was standing on the corner and we went to the Lizzie. In a few minutes I got my first look at Freight Yard Junction. It was a little, long gray building, inside two inches thick in dust. [The second trick operator] said MacBride, the agent, swept it once a month and poured water on it to keep the dust from choking him.
“Soon after we got there, I went out to the car and crawled under the overcoats on the back seat. [About eleven] I went back in the office and stayed until one or two o’clock. Then I went out and slept until I nearly froze and went back in. I listened to the dispatcher’s phone and slept a while on the table, until the telegraph instruments woke me, and I crawled back in the car again. The car was parked between two railroad tracks and if there was not a train going by on one, rooting, tooting, bong-bong, spew-spew, racket-racket, there was a train on the other. And when they were not there, the planing mill next door was letting off steam. At six o’clock I ate a dried beef and lettuce sandwich-mmmmmmgood. Agent MacBride came in at 7:30 and we left about an hour later."
Now more than seventy-five years afterward, I realize how much more I got out of my fifty cents than just a movie star.
“Soon after we got there, I went out to the car and crawled under the overcoats on the back seat. [About eleven] I went back in the office and stayed until one or two o’clock. Then I went out and slept until I nearly froze and went back in. I listened to the dispatcher’s phone and slept a while on the table, until the telegraph instruments woke me, and I crawled back in the car again. The car was parked between two railroad tracks and if there was not a train going by on one, rooting, tooting, bong-bong, spew-spew, racket-racket, there was a train on the other. And when they were not there, the planing mill next door was letting off steam. At six o’clock I ate a dried beef and lettuce sandwich-mmmmmmgood. Agent MacBride came in at 7:30 and we left about an hour later."
Now more than seventy-five years afterward, I realize how much more I got out of my fifty cents than just a movie star.
Author
Tuscaloosa County native Aileen Kilgore Henderson is an educator and award-winning author of children's literature. In addition to her novels for young readers, Henderson has published two memoirs. She won literary awards for The Summer of the Bonepile Monster and Hard Times for Jake. Her most recent publications are essays, "In the Shadow of the Long Leaf Pines" (University of Missouri New Letters) and "Two Old Ladies and One Big Snake" (University of Tampa Review).
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