Judy Henry and Joshua Henry

00:04 Hello, this is Joshua P Henry. I am 44 years old as of yesterday. And today's date is March 10th, Wednesday, 2021. We are in Brandon, Mississippi and I'm here with my mom Judy Fraser Henry and he's going to talk to us come today.

00:27 My name is Judy Fraser Henry. I'm 72 years old.

00:34 Today is Wednesday, March 10th, 2021. I live in Brandon and that's where we are in Brandon, Mississippi.

00:45 And Joshua Henry my son.

00:49 It's going to be talking with me today.

00:52 You're good.

00:54 Okay. So today is just a conversation mom's a little nervous, but I thought maybe we would start mom by just kind of telling a little bit about yourself where you were born where you went to school what you did for a living in before you retire.

01:09 I was born in Magnolia, Mississippi.

01:16 I am my nerves are retired nurse.

01:19 For 45 years and that's down in the deep deep south of Mississippi. Your dad owned. I think a Trading Company.

01:44 New and used automobiles razor straight post

01:49 And my mom was a homemaker, and I'm the oldest of five children.

01:55 So when you went to nursing school, where did you go to nursing school LPN school at Baptist Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, and then I went back and got my registered nurse license and got that from Hinds Community College. So you got a nursing school. Where did you go work next? What it what was your career path? You kind of went and became a nurse and then did you go work for a hospital? If you work for a doctor what kind of 2 began with and the more a nurse gets the more education you get the more they want to pull you away from the actual nursing and put you in administration. So I ended up doing a little bit of everything and just about every field except Orthopedics.

02:52 What's a Harley on right out of nursing school? Where did you work at Memorial Hospital? Where was the Magnolia Mississippi where I was born. That's crazy. And I realized I so you work for some local doctors in Magnolia Macomb. Is that right? I did surgeons to surgeons. Dr. Foster low and they had a partner that came in while I was there a doctor Ross and

03:31 I was Private scrub nurse for them. And so all we did was surgery but we did a lot of it in Macomb and when this happened I was working for the when what happened to the airplane crash of Lynyrd Skynyrd band. I just stories from Mama and Papa talking about what they saw and how you know

04:00 Start their I guess with what they had what what they experience.

04:07 They were in there probably I guess 60s and they had a trailer not a trailer but a mobile home that they pulled around all over United States Hampton visit with people and met all kinds of people and that was their thing to do special in the summertime.

04:30 And when this happened it happened out from Galesburg or in Dillsburg, actually right off the interstate in a very wooded area. So paperwork need the plane went down there to see it and hear it. I knew it crashed around in that area. So they went to it and it happened to that. It happened that the person has landed was I believe was Dwayne easily and

05:01 This was laying here not do anything with it just was Timber everywhere. But as things are in a small town when something bad happens and it the word gets out. Everybody goes to see if I can help and they just happened to have heard it on the news and they got in their van and went over there to where it happens and talking to lace and everything else when they got there it was.

05:31 I said it was really bad. You could just lie bodies all over the place, but there was one in particular that because they had a van they asked if they would please take this one because he was still alive to the hospital McComb and it was a an Emergency where you could take emergencies and feel good about it, you know without having to go all the way to check so they did and as it turned out they can 6 people died on the in the crash and then worse about 26 on the plane. If you have them, we're not even in the van. But anyway, they put them in the back of the van rushing to the hospital as fast as I could go to Macomb and got admire and as it turns out it was in the night.

06:24 And you Josh were seven months up. So I didn't go to the hospital that night but the next morning I found out that the doctor work for head been doing surgery on nighttime one of the band members.

06:40 Anna

06:44 So anyway when I got there I went to intensive care to check on him and

06:52 He was like

06:54 Well for one thing he was he was not he was bigger than the bed who's. Y'all and he was kind of the bed, but he was really nice and sweet. He had all the higher. They look like a Mane on a lion and you can hardly see his face and then some to be bothering him, but it's bothering to find this device and it was really sweet and he was very disoriented and in a lot of pain and I think they might have ended up sending him might be there Jackson later that way but Ed in your right eye.

07:38 Ronnie Van Zant passed away and hit one of his best guitarist at that time Steve games and stay sister.

07:53 Cassie Gaines

07:57 Those are three that died plus the pilot.

08:01 And another man, I can't remember his name, but it was it was a horrific horrific accident and

08:12 We like I said, we we traded in long as we could there at the hospital and of course there was so much newspaper and people from everywhere and this little hospital did not know how to deal with it. But anyway, he did get better eventually the band kind of disbanded for a while and then his brother Ronnie Van Zant brother took the band over.

08:38 And there were a lot up but really good guys on there that you know, if bands were back in those days in 1977. They were warned about not taking that plane because it wasn't in good shape. There were things that were happening to it that shouldn't be happening to it and they didn't clear the the airplane from the airport in Carolina.

09:08 The y'all

09:11 The band members, of course in back in those days. It wasn't unusual. They all had either alcohol or drugs or buzz, but you know, they just weren't thinking and just thought like most of the people that you know, nothing can happen to them. But anyway, they it was a terrible accident and it's a miracle more picture people didn't die.

09:34 But he was kind of a character right like what did he think of these band members? He was one of those people who just he loved me Zeke of any kind and he was always humming and singing in the elevators and things like that, but he he said I remember when I got to work that morning. He said he met practically met me in the back door. Like we usually do in the mornings and he said Justice up and I see you and I said who and heat up. He said we've got one of the Lynyrd Skynyrd.

10:17 He didn't even know you could remember his life. And I don't do this. You remember the guy's name? But he said he's at the miracle. He didn't ask that you been up all night sewing him up. He said yeah, we've been doing a lot of repairs in the night. But anyway, so he said let's go station first. So we went up there and saw him and did that first and James dresses dressings and things like that.

10:50 Hey was the doctor sign was Charles Foster. Love you was a great surgeon. So yeah, well, he's kind of like me when you got the bed. All I could see was how I really couldn't see his face and him being he was little he was very outspoken. I guess you could say if he saw something that he didn't like her whatever. He has something to say about it or ask questions back. But so he says can we cut your higher? And I said he said

11:30 Why an end. Well, we can't see your face. And and so I said do you mind if I pull your hair up like in a ponytail and just with a rubber band to get out of your face? He said oh, I would love that.

11:48 So anyway, finally got all the hair out of his face so we can actually see him but they never but he was very nice and polite and you'd never know. He came from a rock band does they all had such reputations, you know, and I'll send to be kind of

12:07 I don't know self-absorbed, but he asked about already awakened enough to ask about the rest of the people and they had told him at the hospital who passed away and we had the bodies at the hospital and Ronnie Van Zant's wife and some somebody else that was with her and I didn't know who that was came to find his body and all the others, but I have just remember thinking how horrible that Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines passed away and they were brother and sister.

12:44 And thinking about the horses going to tell their mama. You also told me a story that I didn't know about with your mom pop all some years later traveling around the United States and then meet people at these Camp place at the Hampton talk and let's stay there a few days they decide and then I'd move on anyway one day. This was several years later.

13:19 Mom and I were talking to had just gotten back from Canada thinking been had stopped at several places and when when they stop this is one place. She said that they set up their load campaign set up their little table outside and they were doing some cooking in the people next door to them that they came over and some other people that's just the way they did it that diesel things and she said that was sitting there talking to have been talking for a while and she said one of them sitting out. Where are you from and

13:57 She said we're from McComb, Mississippi and the lady with the man said.

14:04 You're from McComb, Mississippi. And she said will you know, I have a great nephew? I think she said she said I hate he was in a terrible airplane crash near Macomb and he was in the hospital at MaComb and they said yeah, but yeah, they remembered that in this. Well, do you know she said he's always said I wish I knew who took who took me to the hospital. She said he said I never need nobody ever told me and I didn't know to ask really because I didn't know all the details at that time, but he said there was no I just don't know who did it and I would love for them to know, you know how appreciative that I am, but they just

14:50 We're willing to let them put me in the back of his van and taken to the hospital. And so

14:59 Mama said well, that was us we did that. We took one of them to the hospital.

15:05 And and she said she said no, I cannot wait to see him. This was before cell phone. I cannot wait to get back home and call him and tell him that I met y'all into y'all are it's helping been really bad to after that.

15:28 But anybody

15:30 That's pretty much the way it is and now there was a lot of attention because that band was very popular and now they have a memorial beautiful remote Memorial.

15:45 And

15:48 And it said Exit 8 on the interstate. They have a bench. They have their pictures on the memorials of Ronnie Van Zant and

16:02 Cassie and Steve games and

16:07 Arthur Kilpatrick

16:10 And

16:13 Anyway, it's just that you wouldn't think one band with the name so much to so many people.

16:23 They have a guest I guess book there. Did you consigned to?

16:29 Anime music that you can sit on

16:33 And it's it. It's called the Lynyrd Skynyrd Monument Exit 8 off of Interstate 85. How many people in a hospital in the coma. Time to Leonard Skynyrd was I mean everybody who are these people or compared to some of the older doctors and people call anything must be what the hospital did as well Sweet Home, Alabama Lynyrd Skynyrd had a real talent riding and four music all together, but he has some really great musicians.

17:33 Encircled except with all kinds of guitar players. So anyway, when his brother started the band back course, it was exactly the same and the writing is not exactly like what he used to ride. But you know, they've been pretty popular even to this day. You'll wear Lynyrd Skynyrd band playing somewhere. So, you know, when people record history from things like direct witness accounts that usually get sort of r a v into journalism and if you know, it's extremely fact-based. It's a chronological when they often miss in all of that is stuff. That's kind of more intangible the stuff that only a person that was there can really capture and Preserve.

18:29 And so I'm curious to know if you were going to try and explain to someone who has the ability to go out and read up all these articles and we'd all about the band what happened. If you were going to try to give them a sense of what it was like back then what a hospital was like at that time. I mean today hospitals are so fantastic and technologically amazing, you know who set of scene 4 of the kind of hospital. They were walking into the kind of space they were in just the kind of world that that this crash took place in because I think for some people the Assumption of the took him to the hospital it is probably one of a certain type of Hospital in a certain type of experience that doesn't really exist anymore. And so walk us through like how big the hospital was the sort of helmet was the kind of facilities that were there and generally just, you know, the kinds of things that only people that lived through that would really be able to understand

19:30 Well, they were two hospitals when it was in my know you have to pass through Magnolia to get to do around Lyndhurst. Go to Macomb. It's just a few more miles down the road, but it was a larger Hospital in head more technology Beacham Memorial Hospital in Magnolia was had become more at of a know. It's not an emergency room type hospital. It was just a HomeTown hospital and then Macomb had all these this new technology and all kinds of things and in many many more doctors. I think there were two or three in in Magnolia and there were many in Macomb and all of them were almost all of them were

20:22 They had their specialty. So it was a bigger hospital. It's like for floors and and it had about I really don't know how many people died in the hospital liar. But the people I mean as far as that goes the news media doesn't take them long to get where something happens and

20:46 A lot of the older people and I wasn't so out of it that that the older people did not know Lynyrd Skynyrd at all. You know, they were like, okay, but they they learned a lot about this band and these people before before it was over with and then these people they were just asking anybody did you see any of this did you know anything about it and that you do you know who's in the hospital for McComas bigger than Magnolia, but I still was a lot of

21:24 Lawton newspaper down there for a short time but it is and become after that. I don't think it has become a medical center yet, but it was in the process because dr. Lowe that I worked with the surgeon was in the process of making sure that was getting done. So they did have a lot of talented doctors down there at the time.

21:56 What about so the kind of I haven't had my appendix from you to that hospital dinner? And I remember it being a lot worse than any recent medical issues and I had I mean back then there weren't like I mean, they were like glass bottles and remember it like, you know, just generally being in the hospital then was very different than our right.

22:25 Well, yeah, they're a lot more conveniences. I guess you could say especially for nurses and doctors, you know, you don't have to stop and ride everything you can dictate things and not like we're now everything is in plastic that can be in plastic. But then we did have some IV fluids that was still in glass bottles, but with the weird kind of focusing out on that at that time, but it's ya that was it. It's just a miracle that anybody survived that plane crash and it was you know, it was like I said, it was Lynyrd Skynyrd and the two met a lot of people learned a lot about them, but they are name Lynyrd Skynyrd.

23:16 Is the way they spell it differently and why is because they're banging they decided to name themselves Lynyrd Skynyrd band because in Florida where they were organized it and they were in high school and every weekend they were playing some place and everybody wanted them to going to go to listen to him play and one of the the physical Ed coach and our teacher and Coach. He hated rock and roll and he never missed a second of try of telling them every time. He saw one of them. It's so it would say I hate rock and roll and so they thought it would be funny if they named their band Lynyrd Skynyrd, except I spelled it completely different which was is obvious with all the wise in it. They spelled it Lynyrd.

24:16 Skynyrd, which is not the way the coach felt it so that's how they got out of the not having a lost. They just didn't respond and since then I understand all of this and they became so famous and everything. Somebody asked him the coach about it. He said well, that's just my night and he said yeah, I just tell them boys all the time. That's the worst thing that ever happened to me. I hate rock and roll and he said but he said

24:52 It's not a lot of attention to me. I can tell he said I'm kind of like you're not I like a little bit up and down like a lot. But anyway.

25:05 Guess that's about is the memorial would be something that people need to go and see is actually an outstanding.

25:16 Memorial and it's a really big one and different things on the on one of them. It says if I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me? And the other one says cuz I'm as free as a bird now and this bird you cannot change. This is Awesome lyrics to his music. So I thought we would surprise you see well with some surprising things. So I want you to imagine for a minute that you're like Keegan and Aiden are your nephews and Ally is your niece and theoretically one of them's bound to make a copy.

26:09 And so imagine like your great-grandkids or great-great grandkids get to hear your voice to hear you talking and telling a story and they don't maybe know I won't get to meet you. So what message would you have for them about the kind bike think about the kind of world they're going to grow up in and how different it's likely to be from our own and maybe talk them some about kind of where they come from where their mama comes from and where you hope they go with their lives.

26:45 Well, I hope all of them are healthy and happy.

26:52 How would I get to know you though? I tell them something about you.

27:00 Could probably tell a lot my grandchildren could probably tell their children a lot of things that I mean. I think they are going to tell some great stories alike set the record straight talk like a crazy cat woman or something. You don't have no I don't have a cat in my word. I don't have any animals that I just have three grandchildren and took children and

27:35 Speaking of animals like a good example of how you grew up. He wants told me the story about somebody hands you got I believe this sounds insane to me, but they gave them to you for buying a pair of shoes in McComb, Mississippi. That is there was a she store. It was called best shoe store and every Easter they had colored little bit. He's at one point that colored rabbits the baby rabbits. And if you bought a pair of shoes, you got a bitty it we always had been

28:12 So we would bring them home and put them outside and try to you know, give them food and water and they run off. But yeah, I don't know.

28:28 That was just my upbringing I had and I was very blessed. I had I had both of my grandparents. I had the country grandparents and I had the city grandparents and

28:44 Both of them for instance. My mother's mother. My grandmother was the middle child of 19 children.

28:53 And and so as I grew up everybody I met I looked at as a relative because they were all married and had children and all the girls now boys, and I never met anybody that I could not.

29:11 The night I made we could talk long enough. We would either know we know each other's and sunkel whatever cousin.

29:20 And and they where's the city grandparents and that was Queenie in and day with McDaniel and then my dad's parents were country parents and that was at Henry Atkinson Frazier and Frazier and they were country.

29:39 So I had the best of both worlds coming up most people that don't even know their own mother and grandparents. These guys are there they don't live anywhere close to them and they don't know how to change oil but that's a shame. That's a real shame about your brothers and sisters. Who are they and where are they? What did they do? Wild Born I was born July 48 my sister August of 49 my first brother September of my second brother November of 51 and my baby brother, December 52

30:24 I brought your party school until my brothers were Marines after they got out of school. And then let's say my sister sober be she lives in Alabama married 11 grandchildren.

30:42 Four children and then Chuck. He's he has

30:55 Two children

30:58 Heather and Scotty and then he had two grandchildren and then Ronnie has the next one has he's married as they made 50 something human Rose and I have two children and I have five grandchildren and Ricky has one daughter Jade and he's the baby.

31:26 And he still has McCombs Irish, Ronnie.

31:30 Let's just say we were the oldest in the family. What was that? Like?

31:38 Well for me, it was great because when you have five children and five years you trying to get lost in the shuffle sometimes but being the oldest.

31:51 It was great because I got the best of both worlds with grandparents all by myself.

31:58 And all

32:01 And I love having all these brothers and sisters. I remember after two of my brothers and I remember this way. I think I was 4 and 1/2 or 5.

32:11 When Ricky was brought her youngest brother, I remember so well, thank you. No, thank goodness. I hope this is another girl. The boys are just too rough. Remember thinking that and then and then like, you know, they're just boys, but at the time all I could think of was okay, we're having another baby coming over. Hope it's a girl and and I remember when my mother came from the hospital and put Ricky over and that a prayer said, this is Ricky and I said Ricky and she said yeah, you got another little brother and I went no touching back. No, no no more Brothers No More Brothers in and started laughing that I can't take it anyway, but that was the end of that so or five of us,

33:09 So I

33:11 The house that you grew up in that house burned down when I was in high school. I love that big old house. It seemed like a it was like the most fantastic place to play in because all these different levels in like nothing really nice to anything else.

33:28 Oh, oh, no. It was mama was one of the one of the greatest mothers on the earth. She just kind of roll with the punches.

33:37 And you know, she said Daddy was always at work and headed to his partnership which was next else but mama was a housewife and she took care of us and she did everything with us. She took a dsco picture something so it took us to voice and piano lessons and all that stuff and pick this up meals a day. How does a house get built the house was built when they got married my daddy they were you get engaged I guess and my daddy had already almost completely built this house and so he just finished it when they got married they moved in it, but then a couple of your shirts after five children in a in a one-bedroom one-bath house.

34:24 He began to a down so he had it on to one end of the house and then turn right around and added on to the other end of the house and we ended up with four bedrooms and three bedrooms.

34:40 And three bathrooms big kitchen dining room formal living and dining room. So, you know, it was a big end up being a really big house. But now we used every bit of it. I can say that

34:55 Big yard, we had horses cows.

34:59 I am at the pond fishing in the back.

35:05 This is that city Folk living that you just driving right now. This is okay. So I guess maybe there are two other things. We only have a few minutes but one of them would be that that you might want to record. When do we have some documentation on it? But the first one would just be that you'd found this stuff from your dad. I think after he passed from the Manhattan Project and how did I think I'm too but hate he was actually involved with that group as

35:48 The secret star in the making of the atomic bomb and he has acid. I have a certificate says that he participated and whatever and in making of the atomic bomb with stop or put an end to the war, they knew he was working at nobody never talked about it and never said anything about it ever. It was all of that when they were working on that. Anyway, you can paper working on it getting others what they were working on for a long time and you don't know what his work was or what I know he was he was like a

36:47 Courier type person within the that area there and who did secretarial type warkii he typed up stuff and send it to everybody and you know

37:01 Answer phones and whatever you need to do in that building to keep people out. And and like I said, you couldn't talk about it. Not even the job that you were doing at the time. I thought one thing would be cool would be if you would tell us just in a couple minutes. What it what Woody ASAP was like the news on the TV and he was from a coma lived in Macomb and it would come by sometime.

37:35 You got to be in the morning Tammy. I like when it come by Tuesday at home. He would come by to visit and Mama would he would always say you got any of those cathead biscuits left? Cuz Mama made the greatest biscuits and they were real and puffy and light and fluffy and he called them cat head biscuits.

37:56 He would come over and get some cat head biscuits to go back down to the shop talk to you he was a sweet guy real friendly little you know, if you still today, I think if not do longest one of the longest-serving broadcasters in history said tell you I remember you had a tornado that touchdown unexpected like in Crystal Springs one year and on the news that night they were asking if they were down there, you know them in the thing and showing where it just tore it just dip down and tore up one little section just completely gone. And one of the people ask O Come to ask him. What what how did you get all the way we don't have any anybody died, but it made a mess out of a lot of houses and

38:52 Anyway, they asked one of the people down there. You know, how much did you have enough for you must have enough warning or something to get out of the way or no is coming and the guy on the news that they were interviewing said. Oh, we had no idea. He's they said Mr. Woody told us is going to be bad weather, but he did not say there's going to be on the news, but he was a good guy.

39:29 That's a pretty good recording session. I think we got a lot of what we wanted to preserve.

39:36 A lot of the stuff if it's edited you end up with you know?