‘It’s hard to believe’

by Val Van Meter
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — "It’s hard for me to believe this happened 20 years ago," said Teresa Bowers.

She is talking about the first gathering of fans of country music legend Patsy Cline and the anniversary, coming up this weekend.

But it might never have happened, if Bowers husband, Frederick "Rick" Bowers Jr., hadn’t made the suggestion.

"I was already a member," local resident Teresa Bowers said, of a Cline fan club based in Dorchester, Mass.

Born and raised in the Winchester area, she had grown up listening to the singer’s records.

"I would sing along to her records while ironing clothes," she recalled.

She can remember the funeral service here, after Cline perished in a plane crash in 1963.

"Our family went to the funeral home," Bowers said. And they drove to Shenandoah Memorial Park for the graveside service.

In the mid 1980s, there was an attempt to get a road in Winchester named for Cline. When that failed, fans decided to raise funds for a bell tower in the cemetery where she was buried. Bowers joined the committee to work on the project.

Then her husband suggested it would be a great idea to have a memorial event here for Cline, so her fans could get together and talk about her singing, and go see places from her life, Bowers took the idea to the president of the fan club.

"I said, if he was interested, I’d be glad to do it," since she lived here, and she did it.

Four years later, Bowers said, that fan club dispersed, and Mel Dick headed up the current one in Winchester, Always Patsy Cline, which is hosting the events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the fans. The memorial service, at 11 a.m. Sunday, at Shenandoah Memorial Park, is open to the public.

Bowers said the support of Cline’s family, husband Charlie Dick, who has attended every get-together for two decades, and her daughter Julie Fudge, "really adds to it," since fans talk to them about the country music legend.

"I don’t know if it would have lasted that long without them," she said.

Bowers lost her husband several years ago, and he is buried at Shenandoah Memorial Park, she said.

Bowers no longer organizes the event, but she does help most years.

"It’s worked out well. I hope it goes on forever."