Violet Hensley, fiddler. (Share link, but they’re going to want you to create an account or put in your Google or Apple address or something).
Ms. Hensley made a clear distinction between a fiddle and a violin, even though they are essentially the same instrument. “If you can read music, you play the violin,” she told The Tulsa World in 1982. “I can’t read music, so I just play the fiddle.”
By the time she turned 99, Ms. Hensley had performed old-time mountain music — not bluegrass, which she deemed too fancy — at the Silver Dollar City theme park in Branson, Mo., for more than 50 years; played on radio stations and at schools; recorded at least two albums, one of them, with family members, called “Old-Time Hoedowns”; and appeared on TV programs like “Captain Kangaroo,” “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee.”
She also handcrafted 73 fiddles — she played No. 4, which she made in the 1930s — thus acquiring nicknames like “The Whittlin’ Fiddler” and “Stradivarius of the Ozarks.” She could have built more fiddles if not for time spent gardening, canning, sewing and cutting her neighbors’ hair, she told CBS News when she was 90. To make ends meet, she was a cleaning lady at a hospital for many years.
There was one thing she wanted to do: play the Grand Ole Opry.
When another fiddler, Tim Crouch, read about that desire in Ms. Hensley’s autobiography, “Whittlin’ and Fiddlin’ My Own Way” (written with Randall Franks and published in 2014), he called the banjo player Mike Snider, who brought her onstage at the Opry on Aug. 6, 2016.
“This little lady was born in 1916,” he said as he introduced her, to cheers. She played “Angeline the Baker” and “Black Eyed Susie” with Mr. Snider, Mr. Crouch and other fiddle players, and received three standing ovations, Ms. Flagg, her daughter, said.
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In addition to Ms. Flagg, Ms. Hensley is survived by two other daughters, Beatrice Porter and Lewonna Nelson; three sons, Marvin, R.G. and Eddie Hensley; Wilma Flagg, a family friend who came to live with her as a teenager; 32 grandchildren; 85 great-grandchildren; 29 great-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 1997. Four of their sons — Calvin, Russell and Gary Hensley and Larry Hensley, who was stillborn — predeceased her.
Making fiddles was one of many skills Ms. Hensley developed over her lifetime. She also made lye soap, tanned leather, broke horses and tended crops.
“I always say,” she told The Tulsa World, “making a fiddle is a lot easier than plowing a field with a team of mules.”
She was 109 when she passed.
Mark Rydell, director. Other credits include “The Reivers”, “Harry and Walter Go to New York”, and “The Fugitive” (the original series). NYT share link for the record.
The NYT finally got around to running an obit for Zale Parry. (Previously.) (Share link, but they’re going to want you to create an account or put in your Google or Apple address or something).
What the NYT obit lacks in timeliness, it makes up for by covering another aspect of Ms. Parry’s life: she was involved in early LSD studies. The NYT obit also reproduces her SI cover, in color.
Tommy John, pitcher.
After suffering what had been up to then considered a career-ending injury, John, then 31, underwent ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction surgery on his left (pitching) elbow in 1974, with the revolutionary procedure being performed by Dr. Frank Jobe. The procedure was named after John and has since become commonplace, performed on thousands of players — not just pitchers — with a typical recovery time of a year to 18 months.
John, nicknamed “The Bionic Man,” went on to pitch for 14 more seasons after the surgery.
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John had 124 wins in 355 games at the time of the procedure. He pitched in 405 more games, winning 164, and finished with a career record of 288-231 — the second-most wins of any pitcher since 1900 not to be elected to the Hall of Fame — with a 3.34 ERA and 2,245 strikeouts in 760 career appearances.
Besides eight seasons with the Yankees, for whom he won 91 games over two stints, John pitched for the Chicago White Sox, Dodgers, California Angels, Cleveland Indians and Oakland Athletics during his career.
He is tied for third on the list of most seasons played, with 26. Only Nolan Ryan and Cap Anson (27 seasons) are ahead of him.
NYT share link. Baseball Reference.
Hayden Panettiere. Everyone is on this, and I’ve got nothing to add. IMDB. NYT share link, for the record.