NAOMI JUDD: Life is Full for Middle Tennessee’s Most Famous Mom (Apr/May 2010)
by Harry Chapman

Without question, Naomi Judd is one of the world’s most famous moms; and she has built an extraordinary career while raising two famous daughters, Wynonna and Ashley. She’s been an award-winning country music superstar, a New York Times bestselling author, host of a weekly television show and a social advocate. She’s been married to husband Larry Strickland, a gospel music singer and leader of the Palmetto State Quartet, for over 20 years. Life is good for Naomi Judd today, but it hasn’t always been that way.

“Normal is just a cycle on the washing machine.”
Naomi’s mother kicked her out of the house when she became pregnant at 17. Along the way, she experienced a failed marriage, an abusive boyfriend, nursing school, several moves and more difficult times. Then, at the height of her musical career with daughter Wynonna, she was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. Doctors told her she had three years to live – a diagnosis she refused to accept. She retired from her musical career and went to war with the disease. Twenty years later she is cured and has emerged as a woman of strength and character, admired by millions of women and men. Music is still important to her, but her greatest satisfaction comes from helping people overcome life’s interruptions.

As we sat down at her home just south of Leiper’s Fork, Naomi, 64, had just returned from a speaking engagement in the state of Washington; and though the previous night was a late one, she was as pretty as ever and ready to talk on the afternoon of my visit. We sat down in an upstairs sitting area, where the chair she chose was filled with stuffed animals – each one carefully selected by Naomi. She says her mother, who is now 82 and lives in the house where Naomi was born and raised, would never buy her a stuffed animal.

“At my core, for most of my life, I couldn’t get rid of the thought that my mother didn’t love me,” she says. “I had difficulty reconciling that with the other blessings in my life.”

Once Naomi understood her family history, which she says is the stuff of which television shows are made, Naomi looked at her mom in a different way. She now limits her expectations.

“She still doesn’t send me birthday or Christmas cards, or hug me or give me what I need,” she says. “I admit, on my recent birthday when I went down to the mailbox, I kinda had a twinge that I would love to get a card from my mom.”

When Naomi does speaking engagements, she talks about her family and is open about the issues she has faced.

“All families deal with some kind of issue,” she says. “Normal is just a cycle on the washing machine.”

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