I kinda' waited to see how many would post to this one. Sarah Ophelia Colley-Cannon was anything but the country bumpkin from Grinder's Switch. She was born to a wealthy family, well eduacated including the fashionable Nashville Belmont College. But her passion and her job took her into the rural areas where she sort of "met" Minnie Pearl. What she did for Country Music and for the women of Country cannot be emphasized enough.
There are plenty of great bios around on Cousin Minnie but I bet that you find in all of them a respect given to very few performers of any stripe. Her death was held in an atmosphere approaching the most somber of state funerals. She had lent her name and many dollars to cancer research and the research center in Nashville bears the name, Sarah Cannon Cancer Research Center.
Man, I loved her. The more I learned of her, the more I enjoyed learning more. She and Henry were married for many years and they lived next to the Governor's mansion in Nashville. When I lived in Nashville she was one star who was always there for charity events or community based fund raisers. A true class act.....A woman of another time when culture and breeding created individuals of character not often found today.