I’ve had many people share with me their story about where they were when they found out that Elvis died. I’m sure that my story isn’t that much different from a lot of people who live relatively close to Memphis. Here’s my story.
My sister and I were in the living room of our house. I was 15 and my sister was 10. I don’t remember if school had started yet for us that year. I was sitting on the couch and my sister was sitting in the floor in front of the television. I was reading a book and my sister was watching “The Brady Bunch” on WMC-TV, channel 5 from Memphis. It was mid-afternoon. They interrupted the show with a story from a local reporter standing in front of Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis saying that Elvis had been rushed there earlier in the day. The report was brief and they went back to showing “The Brady Bunch.” That show was still on when they interrupted it again to report that Elvis was dead. Again, the report was brief.
It was the main story on the local news for the next few days. The Memphis channels had coverage of the crowds at the gates of Graceland. They also had live coverage of the funeral procession from Graceland to Forrest Hill Cemetery. I remember watching that as it happened. I was not a big Elvis fan and no one in my family was upset because he had died. It was big local news, everyone was giving it a lot of coverage and we only had about 3 channels to watch. It was hard not to watch.
Where were you when Elvis died?
