Cash’s ‘sanctuary’ opens to public
One of the greatest gifts Johnny Cash may have ever received came by way of an embezzling accountant.
“Pete,” as Cash called him in his 1997 autobiography, had been taking Cash’s money and buying several properties, including a 107-acre farm in Bon Aqua. When Cash found out, the country music star made Pete sign over the properties. He and his wife, June Carter Cash, sold all of them, except for the one in Bon Aqua, which became his respite from the road.
Now, Brian and Sally Oxley want to share Cash’s refuge with the world.
Until three years ago, Brian Oxley, 65, had never heard Cash’s music; then a friend shared the singer’s American
Recordings. Oxley fell in love, hard, and began collecting Cash memorabilia.
In 2015 he and his wife, Sally, purchased the Cash farm for $895,000. The arbor Cash built for his grapes was still standing, there were bullet holes in the wall from the time he taught his daughter Cindy Cash how to shoot a pistol, and one of the last cars he ever owned — a black Mercedes — sat under a tarp in the barn.
While going through some other items that had been left in the two-story farmhouse, the Oxleys found a VHS tape of a party celebrating Cash’s 20 years in the music business. The couple discovered that the party had taken place in 1975 at an old general store Cash had acquired that was a mile down the road from the farm. They purchased that property, too, determined to restore the decrepit building and the little stage that was set up in the back.
On Tuesday both the Cash farm and the general store — which the Oxleys have trans- formed into the Storytellers Museum — opened to the public.
The simple exterior of the museum belies the eclectic collection inside. Dioramas, paintings, handwritten letters and song lyrics (including the words to Saturday Night in Hickman
County, inspired by Cash’s time in Bon Aqua) hang on the walls.
“We want to make this more of an experience than a museum,” Brian Oxley says. He plans to feature live music on the little stage that the Cash family sang on and to keep the farm a “sanctuary,” like it was for Cash.