History Runs Deep in Nashville with Friends, Arkansas with Family

Between Cruises

Monday, Aug. 17, 2026; Nashville and Fort Smith, Ark.

I have known for years that there is a Jo Johnston Ave. in Nashville. More than a decade ago friend and former boss Mona sent me a photo of the street sign. But all I’ve ever done is drive through Nashville on the way to somewhere else, so stopping to actually see it has been on my bucket list. Last week I checked it off.

I had wondered at the identity of a Jo Johnston famous enough to have a street named after her. During my corporate career, two other Jo Johnstons were among the employees at our Fortune 50 company. Earlier, I caught a bit of ribbing at the small daily newspaper I edited when the movie The Swinging Cheerleaders came to town, starring an actress named Jo Johnston. I doubted the Nashville street was named after any of us.

Last week I learned it wasn’t named for a woman at all, but for Gen. Joe Johnston of the Confederate Army in the U.S. Civil War. The street was named for him — using a once-common abbreviation for Joseph — during the Jim Crow era when monuments to Confederate figures became popular in the south.

I joined my sisters in Nashville last week to visit cruising friends Jett and Kelly, who live on a nearby lake. We spent one day exploring the city known as the Athens of the South (with its full-scale Parthenon replica) and Music City.

Kelly spent years working in the music industry, and Jett comes by her association naturally, as she is the daughter of Hank Williams and a performer in her own right. Their home encapsulates the spirit of her father, a singer and songwriter known as country music’s first superstar and the Hillbilly Shakespeare.

My favorite part of our visit was spending a couple of lazy days enjoying the lake and exploring the countryside, including their farm. The countryside is full of historic sites and old barns that I could have spent hours sketching.

On our drive to Nashville, Eloise and I conducted a cemetery tour in north Arkansas. Our father was from Newport, where his parents are buried. Eloise has taken up some of the genealogy research that our grandmother started, and we traipsed in the 100-degree heat through tiny country cemeteries in Ash Flat, Hardy and Evening Shade.

Yes, that Evening Shade, made famous by a TV series of the same name starring Burt Reynolds and created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and Harry Thomason (perhaps better known for Designing Women and their friend Bill Clinton). See, just the mention of genealogy sends me down a rabbit hole.

We were partially successful in finding family graves, as the cemeteries have no maps and many of the headstones have grown almost impossible to read. But we stumbled upon our great-grandparents, among others.

Next we (and by “we” I probably mean Eloise) will try to find someone who can clean and repair the headstones. There aren’t any other close relatives still living in the area to visit, as our parents were only children and their cousins left rural Arkansas decades ago.

I also had a great overnight visit with Janet, my neighbor and good friend from Covid summers in Santa Fe. She and Mr. Mosley, her adorable dog, now live in Murfreesboro, Tenn., not too far from Nashville. I was thrilled to see she had framed and hung two of my Santa Fe watercolors.

Fort Smith has a bit of a growing foodie culture, as we discovered at a local benefit. I was impressed by the dozen or so chefs who served unusual and delicious appetizers and desserts.

Otherwise, I’ve spent my time organizing not only for our upcoming Alaska cruise, but also for the eight months I will spend on the Volendam starting in late September. My hopes of needing to buy a new wardrobe in slightly smaller sizes haven’t come true.