Marker to pay tribute to June Carter Cash

Private drives named “Anchored In Love” and “Wildwood Flower” allude to songs of The Carter Family.

By: Joe Tennis | TriCities.com
Published: March 11, 2010

Rita Forrester called this week to remind me that a big gospel show was coming to the Carter Fold on March 14.
Still, that’s not all that’s slated to show up in or around the famous music barn in Scott County, Va.
A new historic marker has been approved to commemorate the life of one of Forrester’s cousins, the late June Carter Cash. It’s slated to stand on the roadside where June walked as a child.
Born in 1929, June Carter was, most famously, the wife of the legendary icon Johnny Cash. But she was also a songwriter; she helped scribe “Ring of Fire.” She sang duets with Johnny, including “Jackson.”
She was, too, just genuinely nice.
I found that out, first-hand, 15 years ago: I had been assigned to cover a story for this newspaper when Johnny and June made one of their surprise visits to the Carter Fold on March 11, 1995.
Backstage, just before their show, my wife and I met the famous country music couple. I took a picture of Johnny and June. Then, June took a picture of my wife and me with Johnny.
My only regret: We should have thought to get a picture of ourselves with June.
In the words of the new historic marker, Valerie June Carter “was a member of the First Family of Country Music. She played the guitar and sang with the second generation Carter Family, Mother Maybelle, and the Carter Sisters.”
The sign notes: “June was famous for her flair for comedy on stage through her song, laughter, and dance. She joined the road show of Johnny Cash early in the 1960s and the two were married in 1968. The pair won Grammy awards for their duets. June Carter Cash won Grammys for Best Traditional Folk Album in 1999 and 2003.”
That’s the year the world lost her – in 2003. Just a few months later, Johnny died.
June’s marker – in the Maces Spring section of Hiltons – joins an already musical landscape of road signs along the A.P. Carter Highway, named in honor of June’s uncle and Forrester’s maternal grandfather. A.P. Carter was the leader of The Carter Family.
Here, as you go down the A.P. Carter Highway, you can ease past private drives named “Anchored In Love” and “Wildwood Flower.” Both road names allude to songs of The Carter Family.
Another Scott County road, “Ringfire Private Drive,” would, obviously, be a shortened version of “Ring of Fire,” a song June had written with Merle Kilgore. Johnny Cash made it into a country music hit.
June’s historic marker, by the way, is among a crop of new signs approved by Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources. Among others: Markers commemorate the Nanzattico Indians of King George County and, in Caroline County, the story of the slave York, who participated in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Marker to pay tribute to June Carter Cash

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