Times Free Press contributor Bill Stamps, whose stories of his Southern upbringing filled two books and countless newspaper columns, died Wednesday. His wife, Jana, attributed the cause to a massive heart attack. He was 72.
Stamps spent four decades as a promoter in Los Angeles, working and socializing with headliners in the entertainment industry. In 2016, he and Jana left “Hollyweird,” as he often called it, and relocated to Cleveland, Tennessee, where his father had worked as a morning host and general manager of radio station WCLE in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Stamps attended school in Cleveland in grades 6-8, but it was his earlier childhood in Middle Tennessee that dominated his writing. Readers would come to know the family members and townspeople who influenced his early years, especially his no-nonsense grandmother, Miz Lena. His memories of that long-ago era defined his writing, and Miz Lena’s firm but loving influence was almost always present.
As he wrote in a 2018 column, using her vernacular, “Way back years ago, my grandmother, Miz Lena, told me, ‘No matter what’s goin’ on, always remember to thank Jesus for every day of yore life. Never ask him for more than yuh need. Just simple pleasures. Always keep yore promises that yuh make to the Lord, and he’ll keep lookin’ out for yuh.'”
Contributed Photo / Bill StampsHis memories were full of those simple pleasures: Sunday dinners, rain on tin roofs, heading out for adventures with his dog, Prince.