Coal Miner’s Daughter Becomes A Bride – Today In Country Music History [VIDEO]

January 10th, 1948

Loretta Webb marries Oliver "Mooney" Lynn in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, officially becoming Loretta Lynn. He gives her her first guitar, becomes her first manager, and inspires many of her feisty domestic songs.

The pair married after meeting the previous December and courting for one month. She was 15 when they married, with Lynn six years her senior. Although the Lynns were married for almost fifty years (Mooney died on August 22, 1996) and had six children, their marriage was reportedly rocky until Mooney's death. In her 2002 autobiography, Still Woman Enough, Lynn recounted how her husband cheated on her regularly once leaving her while she was giving birth. Lynn and her husband fought frequently, but she said that "He never hit me one time that I didn't hit him back twice". Loretta has said that her marriage with Mooney was "One of the hardest love stories".

Lynn recalls in one of her autobiographies:

"I married Doo when I wasn't but a child, and he was my life from that day on. But as important as my youth and upbringing was, there’s something else that made me stick to Doo. He thought I was something special, more special than anyone else in the world, and never let me forget it. That belief would be hard to shove out the door. Doo was my security, my safety net. And just remember, I'm explainin', not excusin' ... Doo was a good man and a hard worker. But he was an alcoholic, and it affected our marriage all the way through."