Saturday, July 27, 2024
Linda Ray and I had an amazing day last Friday visiting with Eileen Mitchell, the wife of the late Steve Mitchell, who began his illustrious stage career in Pearl, Texas. Mitchell, a native Texan, was born on March 5, 1955. He first learned to play the fiddle in Pearl under the tutelage of Ruth McGaugh of Izoro. Mitchell was just 14 years old at that time. Years later, Mitchell and McGaugh happened to meet at another bluegrass venue where he reminded McGaugh that she had been his fiddle teacher. She was greatly moved that he remembered her.
From that point in Pearl onward, Mitchell spent most of the rest of his life on stage. When he first met his wife years later, Mitchell invited her and her mother to one of his shows, only saying, “I play and sing a little.” The very humble Steve Mitchell never admitted to being famous. His focus and life’s calling was to love and serve his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as was Eileen’s life’s calling as well. It would not be stretching the truth to say that theirs was a match made in Heaven.
When Mitchell was 19 years old, he began playing on the stage at the Grapevine Opry with Chaisai Childs, who was said to have built the Fort Worth opry scene. In 1981, Mitchell moved to Branson, Missouri, to appear on stages such as The Starlight Theater, the Magnificent 7 Theater, Silver Dollar City, and then later hosting his own show at Mutton Hollow. Additionally, Mitchell hosted his own radio and television shows in Branson as well as TV and radio shows in Los Angeles, California.
Always remembering and longing for his Texas roots, Mitchell eventually returned to Graford, Texas, after many years in Branson, to work on his family’s ranch. While in Graford, Mitchell also hosted shows at South Fork Ranch, Circle R Ranch, and Canyon Lake Ranch. During those years, Mitchell was inducted into the Gene Autry Cowboy Museum and had a showcase there. Mitchell was a seventh generation Texan and had many ancestors who were instrumental in the establishment and governance of Texas. He was a “Texan” through and through!
Mitchell’s final stage appearance happened on August 7, 2021, at the Pearl Music Festival, a place that he loved and cherished to his dying day. Though in declining health, suffering from cancer and having been through several horrific accidents, Steve Mitchell consented to appear on stage with two of his favorite performers, Anji Pearl Day and Rachel Hadsell Bates. How he loved those girls and the girls at The Pearl Cottage Bookstore. That’s who we were to him and Eileen, “the girls.” What an honor! Playing his fiddle like there was no tomorrow, Steve, Anji, Rachel, and a group of other fantastic musicians serenaded the Pearl audience for over an hour that day. Souls were touched. Mitchell had Anji and Rachel in tears of bliss during this grand finale.
Bates got to tell the story of how Mitchell “saved” her from almost quitting the violin forever several years earlier. Day told of how Mitchell inspired her to her very core. It is awe-inspiring of how his love of music lives on in those ladies and countless others!
The final song that day was “Amazing Grace,” Mitchell’s fiddle almost sparking like it was on fire with lightning intensity. No one knew it was the last song he would ever play on stage, with the possible exception of Steve himself. I was there, and it is a memory I will cherish forever. There was not a dry eye on stage or in the audience. Mitchell’s precious wife still gets very teary at this memory and probably always will. In fact, there were a lot of tears shed the day we visited with her. Tears of sorrow, tears of joy, tears of longing, and tears of praising the Lord, the Lord that Mitchell loved and served so well.
Steve Mitchell went to live with his Lord and Savior on September 11, 2021, just a month after his last stage appearance on this earth, the place where it all began. He will always be remembered and honored in Pearl as the famous Singing Cowboy who loved this little community well and deeply, and a man who loved his Lord mightily and completely. Til we meet again….
