Mr. and Mrs. Wendell and Wanda Goodman: our wedding photo.
When Wendell and I met he was an IBM Supervisor for a chain of grocery stores called Humpty Dumpty. He took care of the programming and installation of their computer systems, and ran various facets of bookkeeping and accounting back in the days when a computer took up an entire room. He worked for Humpty Dumpty for seven or eight years before leaving to take a job with Admiral Oil Company, which was preparing for a major installation of new IBM equipment. He was overseeing the programming and set-up for that system when we first married, while I was out on the road playing shows all over the country. Wendell’s job was reliable and paid well, but he was definitely firmly planted in the traditional nine-to-five career path, while my life was anything but conventional.
Daddy continued to go out on the road with me as my manager and driver after I married. I appreciated his company, but it was hard being away from Wendell so often. Of course, we talked on the phone pretty much every day, but we got married to be together, not in separate cities talking long distance.
It wasn’t working to have me traveling and Wendell staying at home. One night I said, “Wendell, you know I love my career. I love getting on that stage and singing for people, and there’s almost nothing in the world that could make me give that up. But there is one thing I love more, and that’s you. We’re pulling in opposite directions, and something’s gotta change. You have a good career, and I’m willing to give it up so I can stay home, we can be with each other all the time, and I can just focus on being your wife.” He was quiet for several seconds.
“I don’t know what the answer is,” he sighed, “but I don’t want to ask you to sacrifice something that means so much to you. Let’s think about it for a little while before we make any quick decisions.”
In early 1962 I was booked for another extended run out in Las Vegas. Wendell and I were talking one night when he said, “I miss you, Wanda. I’m just going to fly out there this weekend so I can see your face.” That was great news. He came out, and having him in my world for a couple of days reminded me how much I missed him when we were apart. He was just about to fly back to Oklahoma City when I offered, once again, to give up my career for him. He shook his head. “You know what?” Wendell replied, “Your job seems a lot more exciting than babysitting a bunch of computers all day. I love being around your world and I think I like the show business life. Plus, your parties are a lot more interesting than mine. Why don’t we try your life, with me helping you out, and see what happens? As long as I can be helpful, I’ll be there. I’m not going to just tag along, but if I can make a real contribution and we can be partners, I think we can make it work.”
Wendell called Admiral Oil and submitted his two weeks’ notice. They said, “We wondered how long it would be before you gave up this job to be with Wanda. We even had bets going about it!” That made me feel good because it meant that others could see the devotion that Wendell and I had to each other. Wendell worked alongside Daddy for a little while learning the ropes of the business and life on the road, and he eventually took over all the business side of my career. He never did just tag along. Though I was the one with the spotlight, Wendell was as important to the operation as I was. And we did it that way for five-and-a-half decades.
At first, Wendell primarily handled the driving. Over time, he started taking over more and more of the responsibilities of a road manager. There were several places where I could count on drawing good crowds, so there were a handful of venues that I returned to regularly. Wendell picked up on Daddy’s practice of going out in the audience each night to make sure that the sound mix was right and that I could he heard. As we passed through the same cities multiple times, Wendell began to get acquainted with the various club owners and promoters.
Jim Halsey was still my booking agent at the time. I was the second client he signed after Hank Thompson, but by the 1960s Halsey was one of the most powerful agents in country music. He was an innovator and a visionary who knew how to get exposure for rising stars. But he had a lot of things going by then, and I was beginning to feel like the forgotten stepchild of his organization. He wasn’t pushing me and Hank into new territory, like he was with some of the other acts he handled. He was just booking the reliable dates, so it felt like we were on autopilot. After Wendell took over he said, “You know, Halsey is just booking you in the same places all the time. He doesn’t know these people. I’m the one out there meeting them and talking with them. I can start doing it myself and we’ll save the commission we’re paying him.” I don’t remember exactly, but it was about 10% or 15% that came off the top from our bookings that we would be able to keep. I thought it was a great idea, and I knew Wendell had the right kind of business sense for handling bookings. Jim Halsey served his clients well, and I’m proud that he learned his skills through working with me and Hank. Times change, however, and different business relationships have their seasons. We knew it was time to move on, so Hank Thompson and I both pulled out around the same time and struck out on our own. With Wendell by my side, I knew it would work out just fine.
Not only did Wendell take on the responsibility of booking the shows, but he also managed everything related to the band. Now that was a job! He had to keep up the car so they could make the dates, make sure to pay their child support, and generally keep an eye on them. There were a few times we had to bail them out of jail so they could work a job. I always had pretty good guys working with me, but they were just boys drinking and having fun and getting into trouble.
It always gave me a great sense of satisfaction that my dad got a second chance to live out his musical dreams vicariously through my career. When Wendell took over, though, Daddy was kind of lost. He couldn’t go back to barbering, since his feet gave him so much trouble. Both my folks always had a knack for finding work, so he jumped in and found different things to do. He worked with a guy selling used cars for a while. He loved people, so he enjoyed that kind of work and was pretty good at it. I know he missed the music and being on the road. Eventually, the guy who managed the Trianon Ballroom in downtown Oklahoma City left and went to Nashville for some other opportunity. When Daddy heard about it he jumped at the chance to be around music again. He took over that job and was back in his world again.
Even though I think Daddy was happy at the Trianon, I know he was a restless soul. He eventually started drinking more heavily, just because it was something to do. I don’t know if he was an alcoholic, but he liked to drink and he liked to go out every night. He was a party guy. Mother wouldn’t allow any drinking in the house, so he’d go out and get a nip from his stash in the glove box of the car. He always wanted to go out to some honky tonk or a bar somewhere so he could drink and tell jokes and have fun with the guys. Maybe with the women, too. That caused my folks some problems. They hadn’t been around each other much because they sacrificed their time together for six years so Daddy could travel with me and Mother could take care of everything on the home front. That life must have been lonely for her, even though she always stayed busy. It was a difficult adjustment for him, and I always felt a little guilty that those circumstances changed for him.
Even though there were plenty of changes in my personal life, it seemed like things were running smoothly by 1962. I had just experienced two Top 10 hits with “Right or Wrong” and “In the Middle of a Heartache.” And even though things didn’t work out with “A Little Bitty Tear” after the Burl Ives debacle, the follow-up single, “If I Cried Every Time You Hurt Me,” performed fairly well on both the country and pop charts. Capitol followed up the Right or Wrong album with another LP, Wonderful Wanda, that was well received. That year I was ranked the third most popular female act in the country, right behind Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells. Loretta Lynn was number four. The year would bring yet another change, however, that would require some big adjustments.
Motherhood was not something I’d ever dreamed of when I was growing up. I never did babysit when I was a teenager, and—with the exception of maybe posing for a fan photo—I had never even held a baby up to the point when Wendell and I married. He wanted to have at least two children, which I knew, but family planning wasn’t as widely discussed in the early 1960s as it is today. Although it was a surprise (a good surprise that I prefer to think of as God’s timing), our daughter Gina was born in the summer of 1962.
When I found out I was pregnant, I thought, Oh my gosh. Now what? What’s gonna happen with my career? It makes me sound terrible to say that, but that was my initial reaction. Being a small person, I got big pretty fast. It got harder and harder to travel, and especially to play music. I had to start holding my guitar off to the side when my baby bump got too big to work around. I performed up until the last couple of months of my pregnancy, but I had some trouble. I nearly lost Gina in Las Vegas during a run at the Golden Nugget. The dressing rooms were upstairs and the showroom was downstairs, so I was going up and down all night, which was not good for the baby.
Another time, I started hemorrhaging. I called my gynecologist and he said, “You must get off your feet for at least thirty-six hours.” I was working at Charlie Genova’s Chestnut Inn, which was a place in Kansas City where I could depend on drawing a good crowd.
Wendell called and said, “Wanda won’t be able to make the show. It’s doctor’s orders. I’m sorry.”
“On, no,” Charlie said. “She’s got to be there.” Wendell reiterated that it would not be possible. Charlie called back and said, “How about this? I’ve arranged for a hospital bed, and we can have it out on the dance floor area.”
Wendell had to put his foot down on that idea. Can you imagine that? Me in a hospital bed with my guitar trying to entertain a crowd? My gosh. I think old Charlie would have had me do it, too! Those were the moments when I was glad to have Daddy and Wendell in my life so they could step in and get tough on some of these promoters and club owners who had some unrealistic ideas.
When I finally took a break from touring, I continued to record. We did the Love Me Forever album, while I was eight or nine months pregnant with Gina. That LP had a bunch of classic pop songs on it, which I really enjoyed singing. I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I was able to get those notes out, and Love Me Forever—which was released in 1963, several months after we recorded it—is still one of my favorite albums to this day.
I took two or three months off after Gina was born. We had recently moved into our first house at 2213 Laneway Drive, and I was doing my best to play the part of the domesticated woman. I didn’t know the first thing about being a mother, but I knew I was in love. Ken Nelson came and visited us and the new baby when he was in town on some other business. Capitol also sent a little savings bond and a sterling silver piggy bank, which was very thoughtful. It felt like my real family and my Capitol Records family had come together in harmony. At least that’s how it felt until it was time to hit the road again. Leaving Gina in someone else’s care was extraordinarily difficult, but there was no other choice.
Wendell was as head-over-heels for the little bundle as I was, and he was ready to grow the brood immediately. I was an only child, so I wasn’t so sure, but he thought having both a boy and a girl would make for the perfect family. I thought maybe we should at least space it out a little bit. I guess birth control pills had just started to get popular around that time. I started taking them after Gina was born, but every time I took one I would get morning sickness as if I was pregnant. That was strange because I had never gotten morning sickness when I actually was pregnant. Needless to say, those pills didn’t last for very long. Natural consequences being what they are, I was pregnant again less than a year after Gina came along.
My son, Gregory Jackson Goodman, was born January 1, 1964. Wendell always jokes that he missed his tax deduction by just three hours. He tells people, “I had Wanda running around the football field and doing sit-ups, but Greg just refused to come in 1963.” It sounds hard to believe, but the minute we clinked our glasses together to toast the New Year at midnight, I clutched my stomach. My labor had started!
I didn’t have much of a breather between the two babies, and having two children certainly didn’t make it any easier on me and Wendell to have to be away so often. The kids had several nannies, but Ms. Willis was the one who was with us the longest. She became part of the family, and we were also very blessed to have actual family nearby. Both my parents and Wendell’s parents were local, so they could stop in whenever they were needed. Once Greg came along we moved once again to 8400 Charlotte Drive, which wasn’t far from our previous house. That was the first home we actually built, and we have some great memories of our young family in that house.
As much as I loved my kids, pregnancy was not easy on me either time. I had them both via C-section, but I had to go through a good bit of labor. In fact, it was shortly before I became pregnant with Gina—when I had my appendix removed—that the surgeon told me I would have trouble with pregnancy and would need to have children via C-section should I ever get pregnant. I don’t know what he saw when he was poking around in there, but I was glad to find out the information when I did. Once Wendell got his boy, I was off the hook. I wouldn’t have to endure the unpleasant part of the process again, so we decided to go ahead and officially cap the Goodman family head count at four. I couldn’t have asked for two better children, so I knew we weren’t going to top ourselves!
Because they were close in age, Gina and Greg always had each other to rely on when their parents were off traveling. They got along remarkably well for siblings, and I was grateful that they were always close. Even though they were buddies, their personalities were very different. Gina never wanted anyone to know that her mother was Wanda Jackson. She wanted to make her own way in the world and be appreciated on her own merits. She wasn’t going to use my name to get a part in the play or attract friends. Greg, on the other hand, headed off to kindergarten with one of my LPs under his arm and announced to the class, “This is my mother!” We’ve always had a good time kidding him about that!
Often, when Wendell and I were traveling for weeks at a stretch, I’d open up a suitcase to discover that Gina had slipped one of her toys in our luggage to go along with us. It was so sweet, but that just broke my heart. I knew she wanted to be the one to stow away to be with her mom and dad, so she was sending an ambassador in her place. When the kids got a little older, we would turn some of our summer tour dates into family vacations. If I was working at fairs, we could bring them along to ride the rides and have cotton candy and that kind of thing. I knew it wasn’t a normal childhood for them, and I’ve always carried a little guilt about that.
Mother kept Gina and Greg on the weekends, so she practically raised both my kids. She was always there for us, and I was so grateful for her steady and consistent influence in their lives. All the grandkids and great-grandkids eventually started calling her Bobo (pronounced Bob-oh). That came from my mom’s niece, Naomi. Mother’s side of the family called her Nellie Bob, which was a nickname her dad started calling her when she was a kid. Naomi couldn’t say that when she was a little girl, so it just came out Bob. And it stuck. Bobo was the matriarch, and a pretty important person in our family. As it turned out, Bobo was more like a mother to my kids than I was. Even when I was home it was hard to be fully present. There was always some kind of demand like, “I’ve got to go get this outfit finished for the show next weekend,” or “I need to go to this photo shoot,” or “I’ve got to rehearse with the band.” I always had stuff to do, so I didn’t even really know all the kids’ friends. I don’t think I was a very good mother. My kids say that’s not true. They say they understood what I was doing, but it couldn’t possibly have been easy on them. I look at what parents they turned out to be and wonder where they got it. I feel like I didn’t do anything right!