Patrick Henry | Eulogy for Jeanne Robertson and Music

i'm delighted to see so many people here today and i know that jeannie would be happy to see so many people here as well the only thing that could have possibly made her happier is if y'all had bought tickets to be here i had not intended to speak today i was going to sing a song jeannie always asked me to sing a song and she asked me to sing at jerry's funeral just a couple of months ago but beaver asked me to say a few words and i want to thank you for that beaver because this is an honor of my lifetime the irony is jenny would have been the one to help me with the speech of this importance my name is patrick henry and jeanne robertson was my friend most of y'all knew that she was much more than a friend to me she was a mentor she was a coach she was a parent figure and she was a collaborator some would say co-conspirator um [Music] she used to tell her long-time assistant and friend of over 40 years tony the queen of tickets and my mother-in-law that um she said tony if i die first double the price of the product and set up a table in the back now that would be tacky so if y'all want to find me after the service i'll be happy to take your orders what can i say about genie that you don't already know i mean after all you all know that she was six feet two inches tall or 514. she was wife to left brain mother to beaver named after a rat grandmother to rider named after a truck and grandmother to gray named after a crayon you knew her she loved duke basketball auburn football and all things elon university she was the star of alamance county and beloved by people around the world but we all claimed her as our own i'd like to share jeannie roberson from my perspective most people knew jeannie from the persona they saw on stage elegant graceful wickedly funny beaver said that he got a front row seat to his mother i like to think i got a backstage pass i got a glimpse behind the curtain and oftentimes that glimpse would have jeannie sitting at her desk probably in sweatpants and an auburn tumor's corner t-shirt working on material and when she'd stopped working on material she enjoyed her favorite pastime which was working on material um she perfected the cla the craft of southern eloquence and created up until her last day as beaver said the day she died she was surrounded by papers working on material i remember when she wrote the story about the magnetic bracelets you know the story she called me and she said are you busy i'm coming over i said well come on she came to the house knocked on the door i invited her in she didn't want to sit down she stood there in the foyer and told me this story about the magnetic bracelets now just to refresh your memory jane tucker had told her about these bracelets with a magnetic clasp it would be easy for her to put the bracelet on in a hotel room when she was by herself on the road but you don't just wear one bracelet no no you must wear a bunch of bracelets and so she went to deliver a speech she was sitting there at the luncheon and she reached for the salt and pepper shaker and the fort flew out of the hand of the woman next door and stuck to her arm i laughed so hard i doubled over and when i stood back up she looked at me and she said that's all i needed to see and she turned around and walked off i was so grateful that she would do that with me she would bounce material off of me she would share ideas i would share ideas with her she um was one of a kind we were recording a video as we often did during the pandemic i mean let's be honest we had some time on our hands and we were recording a video where we she would put on this miracle age-reducing face cream it's a really funny premise erin we're all you're in here somewhere aaron one of the nashville people gave us that idea and she would she would put on this face cream and she was sitting there in her in her bathroom in her robe and a towel around her head and i had the camera i was set up getting all these cool angles and there was a point during the video where she would sit down and let the face cream the age-reducing face cream take effect i said genie we need cucumbers you know i've been doing the fancy spas i put the cucumbers right on the eyes so she said let's go to the fridge we went to the refrigerator she opened it up she turned and said i don't have any cucumbers but then i saw the light bulb go off she reached into her refrigerator and pulled out a jar of pickles and so she sat there for the next 45 minutes with pickles on her eyes pickle juice streaming down her face because she knew it would be funny as long as it was tasteful genie would do just about anything to make people laugh with over 115 million views on youtube jeannie was a grandma gone viral she loved producing content for the internet and when the pandemic hit bartenders rodeo clowns and professional speakers we all found ourselves on the same unemployment line and so i along with others the nashville people said you need to do a facebook live she said a facebook what facebook live so what started out as me holding an iphone on her back porch evolved into four cameras lights switchers sound boards microphones and it turned into live from the back porch with jeannie robertson during the height of the pandemic we were getting over 120 000 views every week and consistently that show was ranked in the top 20 sometimes the top 10 of the most watched live streams in the world which is pretty impressive and it was all due to jeannie in her natural approachable way about her we had amazing guests on that show and i guess what was so neat about it was it was so organic it just grew naturally i mean for me standing there on the back porch watching her jump up and down because she had walked outside and there was a snake on the porch and she screamed i didn't had no idea your mama could jump that high walk down the on the back deck there's a snake she jumps up in the air she comes back in screaming screaming and then goes keep rolling keep rolling um we had amazing guests on that show people that you don't or didn't know but you may know now people like al walker and jane herrlong and ladonna gatlin mark sharon brock debbie childers tara brown but we also had some recognitio kelly swanson who's here we also had some names that you probably do recognize like mark lowry shonda pierce and the grand old opry legend jeannie seely who flew all the way from nashville to north carolina with her husband just so they could sit on the back porch with jeannie i got to be there i was the gellman to genie's regis um so many people are watching this service right now through live stream which i think is so appropriate and i want to talk to you all right now because i want you to know how important you were to her so many of you have said how her videos and saturday shows got you through some of the darkest moments in your life and i'm here to tell you that your presence your love and your kindness got her through some pretty dark moments in her life we have a friend of the show who's here today linda harris who flew all the way from oklahoma to be here linda used to send paul's donuts to the house on saturday so we'd have something to eat and share with our guests and linda i want you to know genie may be gone but tony and i are still here and i like paul's donuts every saturday i'd walk into her house to set up for the show and she'd be in her office and she'd be cutting up questions that she had printed off that that her fans had submitted and she was using a paper cutter from 1877 i think wouldn't it be her but she wanted to make sure that when she reached into that smiley face bucket it was truly a random drawing that was important for her not so much to me but it was important to her we recorded an audio book together when we decided to do that one she wanted to do an audio book because she knew a lot of her fans had a hard time seeing the small print and so she wanted an audio book so they could listen to her stories and so i started to look for recording studios and although i found plenty of recording studios that could do it i thought that it might be a difficult for her to stand and record for four hours at a time which is usually what you did and so i said genie i think we can do this ourselves i had we had the microphones i had the recording software had a moderate know-how and so we began to walk around the house looking for the best place to record now these are very sensitive microphones so you had to have complete silence and so i'd sit down in her office and i'd set up put the earphones on but i could hear that fluorescent light buzzing so we go into another room i'd set up and i could hear a dog barking outside and then i walked into her closet the closet that used to be beaver's bedroom and all of a sudden the sound disappeared because of all the clothes it became the perfect recording studio so for the next five weeks we sat in her closet me on one side of the packing table her on the other and we recorded don't bungee jump naked and other important stuff available in cd or download at www.storegenierroberson.com she had plans for a new book she said she had written the stories we just had to put them together we were talking about a docu-series about her and her life al mccree and and she were already booking the 2022 tour the last tour was called the jeannie robertson rocking chair tour i begged her to call the next one jeannie robertson off her rocker i'm not sure she was on board with that but i think she was going to come around what was so unique about jeannie as a humorist is that she was clean she didn't feel the need to use profanity she didn't and she told real stories and although they may have been spiced up just a bit um the people in her stories were real her characters were real her best material came from her husband left brain her son beaver who she would always say privately was the funniest one in the family privately she would say that her bestest friend norma rose jane tucker from new york city her sister catherine tony her assistant of over 40 years and so many more i used to ask her why don't you ever use an opening act and by opening act i mean me and she would always say i don't my people can't sit that long without an intermission and she didn't want to use an intermission they can't sit that along without having to use the bathroom and for so long i thought that her fans had horrible bladders but that's not it she didn't want to share the stage she was protective of her stage but that changed that changed you see jeannie realized that the the influence that she had on other humorous and other speakers she and al mccree one of the nashville people created a humor competition where the winner would get to open up for her on us on stage in the city of their choice i want you to understand how unique this is here jeannie had been a professional speaker for well over 50 years she had developed her craft into almost perfection she had developed the ability to sell out two thousand seat theaters and now she's willing to open her stage and share her stage with an up-and-coming artist during the pandemic we invited a number of guests to be on the show up and coming humorous comedians experienced speakers who just looked up to her and admired her and it became to jeannie i became apparent to jeannie how important she was to them she had been elevated into the role of mentor and she embraced that role in the end she loved sharing her stage she gave and she gave and she gave until she gave out i believe her body just couldn't keep up with her schedule genie had a christian faith we talked about that in the end and she cherished the prayers from her family and her friends friends like glenna salisbury and naomi rhodey her fans who would send prayers her way she heard you and she appreciated them her last speech was delivered in las vegas nevada at the national speakers association annual convention which was fitting because of how important nsa was to her it's the association that she was a member of for over 40 years she was bestowed every award and honor that they offer it's the association that sar is a national president and a board member and gave her so many friendships many of whom are represented here today and who are watching online that last speech in las vegas was delivered almost 58 years to the day that she walked across the miss north carolina stage for 58 years jeannie robertson grace stage is big and small around the world bringing laughter joy and her unique brand of southern charm i'll miss my friend i'll miss our conversations i'll miss the laughs i will miss our sunday night family dinners i'll miss her advice and her support of even my craziest ideas i'll cherish the time we spent together i will always remember that the magic is in the details and i'll do my my best to find the humor in everyday situations but most of all most of all i'll always remember to keep laughing [Music] oh amazing [Music] grace how sweet the sound that saved [Music] [Music] was lost but now i'm found i was blind but now i see twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fear really did that grace appear the hour i first believed then be been there ten thousand years bright shining ass days to sing god's praise then when we first [Music] be gone then when we first be gone [Music]

Channel: JeanneRobertson

Views: 241,662

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Id: poDyt882iRA

Length: 19min 39sec (1179 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021