Talk:Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)
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[edit] Jimmie Rodgers' Birthplace Debate
According to In The Country of Country by Nicholas Dawidoff, Jimmie Rodgers was actually born in Pine Springs, Mississippi but he claimed Meridian as his hometown. Tiles
There has been a controversy over Jimmie's birthplace for a long, long time. In a June 2006 telephone interview with James A. Skelton, President of the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Foundation at Meridian, Mississippi, he stated that Jimmie was born at his parents home in Geiger, Alabama, 40 miles northeast of Meridian. This was where Jimmie's paternal grandparents lived. Skelton said that after Jimmie became famous people would ask him where he was born, and he would always respond truthfully that he was born in Geiger, Alabama. But people in Meridian, who had already claimed Jimmie as "a hometown boy," would say to him, "Jimmie. Don't say that you were born in Alabama! Tell 'em you were born in Meridian." And Jimmie, wanting to make the local folks happy, obliged them.
But, after he and his wife, Carrie, moved to Texas, he petitioned Blue Bonnet Masonic Lodge in San Antonio for membership. On the petition form, which was received by the Lodge on 20 October 1930, under the space for place of birth, Jimmie wrote "Geiger, Alabama". The petiton was signed by Jimmie and his signature was witnessed by L. H. Stevenson, and his two recommenders were Walthall Littlepage, Worshipful Master; and Clyde L. Howard, Secretary of the Lodge. His proposers were H.E. Curington, Jack Rutack, A. D. McDonald, and C. A. 'Sunny' Blevins. (The original of this petition is in the possession of Blue Bonnet Lodge in San Antonio, and a copy will appear in Volume XLI of the "Transactions of Texas Lodge of Research, A.F. & A.M.), not yet published.)PGNormand 17:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
