Buddy Holly: Biography (50 page)

As Ritchie’s funeral began, Sharon Sheeley, Eddie Cochran’s fiancée, broke down at the sight of his coffin, which writer Marcia Borie later described in
Photoplay
as a modest brown casket. It was borne by members of Ritchie’s band, the Silhouettes. The officiant, Rev. Edward M. Lynch, O.M.I., offered the prayer: “O gentlest Heart of Jesus, ever present in the Blessed Sacrament, ever consumed with burning love for poor captive souls in Purgatory, have mercy on the soul of Thy departed servant.” This was followed by “The Hail Mary”: “Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

The burial was at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery. Concepcion stood looking over the huge floral mound that covered her son’s grave, which was surrounded by elaborate funeral wreaths arranged on tall stands, including one in the shape of a cross. As the crowd dispersed, a crew-cut youth from the Drifters, a car club in the Valley, told Bob Keene that Ritchie had been an “honorary member” of the Drifters. He took a wadded piece of paper from his leather jacket and began to read a poem. Entitled “Our Boy—in Memory of Ritchie Valens,” it described Ritchie as someone who’d always been as happy-go-lucky as a mockingbird; then, as sudden as a violent storm, their “dearest friend” was taken from them, and now he was in God’s arms.

Following the funeral, Gil Rocha, who played vibes for the Silhouettes, went home “and cried like a baby for a very long time,” he later told Mendheim. No stone would mark Ritchie Valens’s grave until money was raised some time later at a memorial dance. Eventually, the stone was engraved with these words, which reflected Ritchie’s dual identity as son and rock star:
BELOVED SON—RICHARD S. VALENZUELA—RITCHIE VALENS
—1941–1959. The dominant motif on the gravestone was a large cross with the initials IHS (the first three letters of the Greek spelling of Jesus). An engraving of a rosary with a crucifix was draped over the transverse piece of the cross. Beneath Ritchie’s name were some musical notes from his first hit, “Come On—Let’s Go.”

*   *   *

The Bopper’s death certificate revealed that his body was sent home from Clear Lake on Wednesday by private plane. He was taken to the Broussard Funeral Home in Beaumont, Texas. In her third trimester with their second child, his wife arrived from New Orleans, where she and their daughter Deborah had been visiting, according to the
Clear Lake Mirror-Reporter.
Adrianne had heard the news when it was blurted over KTRM, the station where her husband had worked. Gordon Baxter, the Bopper’s colleague at KTRM, later acknowledged that it was “a horrible thing,” explaining that when an important bulletin came over the wire machines, a siren went off at the station, and the announcer on duty automatically read it on the air.

The Bopper’s widow later told
TV Movie and Record Stars
magazine that she was giving the Bopper’s guitar to Dion, whom she singled out as the Bopper’s best friend on the tour. Elvis Presley and Col. Tom Parker sent a telegram of condolence to the Bopper’s mother, reporter Carol Gales would reveal on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue of the Bopper, Buddy, and Ritchie in Beaumont thirty years later. During the funeral service, an altercation broke out when a photographer from
Life
allegedly attempted to pose three weeping fans as they threw themselves over the coffin. According to writer Randall C. Hill, the photographer was “bodily ejected” from the church.

Gordon Baxter recalled that during the Bopper’s sleepless Disc-A-Thon in 1957, the Bopper experienced a hallucination in which he’d foreseen his own death, later reporting that “the other side … wasn’t all that bad.” After his funeral, the streets of Beaumont were lined with fans as a long procession of cars followed the hearse to the cemetery. Baxter ran the board at KTRM, playing the Bopper’s favorite songs, including “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.” According to Baxter, the Bopper was “a spiritual kind of guy.” The way to really understand him, Baxter said, was to “turn out the lights some night” and play the Bopper’s Mercury recording of “Someone’s Watching Over You.” When the record was released the following month, it received a “Pick” in
Billboard,
the reviewer hailing it as “a sacred offering with simple, but effective choral backing.… Sure to reap heavy spins.” But the Bopper would never again make the Top 40.

*   *   *

Roger Peterson had two funerals—one on February 5 at the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Ventura, a village of five hundred a few miles west of Clear Lake, and another on the following day at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Alta. In attendance were his widow DeAnn, his parents Pearl and Arthur E. Peterson, two brothers, Ronald and Robert, his sister, Janet, and his grandmother, Mrs. Elmer A. Peterson. He was buried in the Storm Lake Memorial Cemetery. His grave marker bears an airplane insignia, Buddy Holly fan Bruce Wilcox reported in
Reminiscing.

A grieving Pearl Peterson was still angry at Buddy, Ritchie, and the Bopper and would continue to blame them for her son’s death, telling an Associated Press reporter in February 1988—twenty-nine years after the crash—“If it wouldn’t be for those guys having to go out that night, they’d all be here today.” Despite her resentment, she was gracious when Bruce Wilcox sought her out in 1980. Pearl served “a delicious lunch” of ham, cheese, home-baked bread, and a “super good cherry dessert,” Wilcox recalled. Later, Pearl sobbed when she attempted to discuss her son. At least they could now listen to the radio without cringing every time a song by Buddy, Ritchie, or the Bopper was played, Art Peterson said. By 1988 he could tell the AP, “The music doesn’t bother us now. We’ve gotten used to it.”

*   *   *

Buddy’s funeral was announced for Saturday, February 7, in Lubbock. To retrieve his body from Clear Lake, Larry chartered a plane at West Texas Aircraft and flew to Mason City on Wednesday, February 4, accompanied by his brother-in-law J. E. Weir. They went directly to the Wilcox Funeral Home in Clear Lake, where Larry was asked to go inside the chapel and view the body. Larry refused. “I just wanted to remember Buddy like he was when he was little,” Larry said in 1992. “I didn’t want to remember him all beat up.” As Larry paused outside the chapel, trying to picture Buddy “laughing, hollering, and cutting up,” J. E. Weir went inside and lifted the casket lid. He took one look and vomited. Later he told Larry, “He was so tore up. I’m glad you didn’t go in there.”

They drove out to the pasture, where two FAA investigators, bundled in heavy parkas, boots, and fur-lined hoods, had been collecting scraps of metal since shortly after sunrise. It was snowing, which made their work more difficult. The FAA team, Eugene Anderson and Fred Becchetti, both of Des Moines, pulled and poked at the wreckage, which now was almost half covered with snow. Dwyer said he didn’t have the “faintest idea” why it had happened, according to the February 3
Globe-Gazette.
In Dwyer’s estimation, the craft had been in good condition, the pilot was competent, and weather had been good. Dick Mettler, the airport manager, conferred with the investigators but “could wind up with only one question, ‘How in the world did it happen?’”, Collison wrote in the February 5
Globe-Gazette.

Buddy’s brother thought he had the answer. “We went out in the snow and saw the plane wreck,” Larry said in 1992. Earlier, in a 1979 interview, he explained, “They had just installed a Sperry gyroscope on that plane, and they work just the opposite of the other ones. In one, the little airplane goes up and down in the little window, and in the other, the background changes. This kid, Roger Peterson … [was] reading the instruments backwards.” Later, the CAB would confirm that Peterson “misread the instrument,” according to Powers and Tecklenburg.

A large pile of clothes had been stacked in the middle of the field. “It was a very colorful pile, reds and greens,” Larry recalls in 1992, “nice jackets and pants stacked real high.”

“Do you want these?” someone had inquired. Unable to distinguish Buddy’s belongings from the others, Larry replied, “Naw, I don’t want ’em.”

“These are Buddy’s clothes,” he was told. “What do you want to do with them?” Deep in anger and grief, Larry snapped, “Get rid of them. Burn them. Give them away—whatever. I don’t want to see them again.” Later he had second thoughts, he recalls in 1992. “Just as I was leavin’, I picked up this little ol’ dop kit because I had seen Buddy carrying it many times and knew it was his. It had some tooth powder that had come open and everything was white. There was a prescription or two in there for cold medicine, a razor, a comb, stuff like that.”

Several fans, including teenager Gary Edward Keillor—later known as humorist Garrison Keillor—were standing around watching. The officials were cleaning up by Wednesday, Keillor recalled in a 1993 television newscast. They didn’t do a very thorough job—Buddy’s pistol would remain hidden in the snow until spring plowing, according to an April 10, 1959, story in the
Globe-Gazette.
The wreckage of N3794N was finally loaded on a flatbed trailer and hauled to a hangar, where the FAA disassembled it, piece by piece, Carroll Anderson told Wayne Jones. Their findings would be announced at an FAA hearing later that month.

Buddy’s casket was carried to the plane on Wednesday, February 4, and he began his final trip home. Niki Sullivan, who would later serve as one of Buddy’s pallbearers, described the casket as “silverish—a metallic gray plastic.” The plane made it as far as Des Moines, one hundred miles south of Mason City, before it ran into bad weather and had to be grounded, Griggs later revealed in
Rockin’ 50s
magazine. The following day the plane completed its flight to Lubbock. Traveling separately, Larry went straight to his parents’ house as soon as he landed. “They had Buddy’s music playin’, they had his pictures out—I couldn’t look at them,’ Larry said in 1992. “I couldn’t listen to the music. If I heard half of one of his songs I’d start cryin’.”

Tinker Carlen had been hanging around the funeral home in Lubbock ever since he’d heard of Buddy’s death. “It was real sad, it was hard to take,” he recalled in 1992. “I just stayed up there by Sanders Funeral Home waitin’ for them to come in. I never even went home, I was just drivin’ around town. I was in a daze, couldn’t believe it.”

Maria Elena flew from New York with Provi, arriving at 4:40
P.M.
Wednesday. Ill from the miscarriage, she went into seclusion at the Holleys. At last, Buddy’s body lay in Sanders Funeral Home at 1420 Main Street. Advertised as “Family Owned & Operated Since 1931,” the mortuary’s logo was—and remains—a drawing of a knight in full armor, wearing spurs, brandishing a six-foot sword, and holding a shield inscribed
SERVICE MEASURED NOT BY GOLD BUT BY THE GOLDEN RULE.
Sanders aggressively advertises “pre-paid & pre-arranged burial plans and cremation service,” calling itself “your golden-rule funeral home” and promising “service you can depend on.”

In death, Buddy at last got the attention of the local newspaper. The
Lubbock Evening Journal
accorded his death the lead story on the front page of the February 3 edition. The thick, black, eight-column banner headline screamed
LUBBOCK ROCK-’N’-ROLL STAR KILLED.
Oddly, the headline writer seemed reluctant to mention Buddy’s name, consigning it to one of the smaller subheads. The story was positioned in the extreme right-hand column, which is always reserved for the most important news story of the day:
BUDDY HOLLY, THREE OTHERS IN AIR CRASH/RITCHIE VALENS, J. P. RICHARDSON, PILOT ALSO DEAD.
Not until the fourth paragraph were Buddy’s parents mentioned, and there were no photographs of them. The story quoted “friends” who described Buddy as “probably one of the biggest entertainment celebrities ever to hail from Lubbock,” a non sequitur of sorts, since the city had never produced a celebrity in the same league with Buddy Holly, nor would it to this day.

Directly underneath a two-column photograph of Buddy was a weather story about winter’s frigid grip on the South Plains: On the day Buddy died, the same cold front in which he’d perished swept down the plains, chilling Lubbock and the Permian Basin. In a “killer storm” of snow and freezing rain, schools were shut down, and State Highway 302, which ran through Roy Orbison country, between Odessa and Kermit, was closed due to “heavy sheet ice.” Near Graham, on U.S. Highway 88, twenty trucks were stalled on a hill after a truck and trailer “jackknifed on the ice-slicked highway.” By the following day temperatures climbed to forty-one degrees, and all across the vast western stretches of the state, from the Red River Valley through the Big Bend country to El Paso, the land “began sloughing a heavy coat of ice.” In the Northern Plains, however, nothing had changed; the surviving members of the “Winter Dance Party” faced a “new surge of arctic air,” which plunged temperatures below zero.

As Lubbock awaited Buddy’s funeral that first week in February the local paper continued to run news stories about his death and upcoming funeral on the front page as well as features on his career inside the paper. One story, headlined
SERVICES PENDING FOR BUDDY HOLLY, VICTIM OF IOWA PLANE CRASH/SINGING STAR’S BODY DUE HERE TODAY
, included the information that Waylon Jennings’s wife and two daughters were living in Littlefield; also that some of Buddy’s grandparents survived him, including his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Eva P. Drake of Lubbock, and his paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. John Holley of Commerce, a small town in East Texas.

In the same edition, Larry Welborn and Bob Montgomery were referred to as Larry Wilburn and Bobby Burgess, an indication of just how unfamiliar the editorial staff was with the life and career of the city’s most famous son. Jack Sheridan’s otherwise fascinating feature story was absurdly headlined
DEATH CUTS SHORT METEORIC CAREER FOR LUBBOCK YOUTH.
Meteoric hardly describes Buddy’s career, which survived a fiasco in Nashville, a firing by Decca, six months of grueling, unheralded recording in Clovis, an uneasy apprenticeship with Hank Thompson, and the hapless “black tour” before finally taking off. Sheridan’s contention that Buddy rejected movie offers because he disapproved of the “hurried way” rock exploitation films were ground out probably came from Petty and is very far from the truth, in light of statements to the contrary by Jerry Allison, Maria Elena Holly, and Buddy himself, who said he was “buddying up” to Cochran in the hope of getting into
Go, Johnny, Go!