Gordon Eugene “Gordie” Silver (1945-2018), country music fan and collector, was born May 1, 1945 in Springfield, Nova Scotia, to Wesley and Florence (Wile) Silver. Gordie trained as a cartographer and was employed with the Provincial Government, Bowater Mersey and the County of Annapolis Assessment Division. He retired in 1996. He married Terry Whitman in circa 1970 and had 2 daughters. Gordie Silver loved music, especially international country music star Hank Snow (1914-1999). Gordie started his massive record collection of Hank Snow albums in 1955 at the age of 10 and served as president of the Hank Snow International Fan Club in the 1980s. He died November 4, 2018 at his home in Round Hill, NS.

Clarence Eugene “Hank” Snow (1914-1999), international country music singer and songwriter, was born in Brooklyn, Queens County, NS, on May 9, 1914 to George Snow and Maude (Hatt) Snow. His music career started in 1933 on CHNS Radio Station in Halifax NS under the name Hank the Yodeling Ranger. He signed a recording contract with RCA Victor’s Bluebird label in 1936 and made his first recording at their studio in Montreal QC. He toured across Canada in the 1930s and 1940s, then got his ‘big break’ when he appeared on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville TN, USA in 1950 with his hit song “I’m Movin On”. Between 1936 and 1985, Hank Snow made 840 commercial recordings including folksongs of his boyhood, hobo and train songs, cowboy songs, pop standards, gospel, instrumental guitar, tributes to his main influence Jimmie Rodgers, recitations of Robert Service Poems, and his Billboard hits like “I’ve Been Everywhere”(1962) and “Hello Love” (1974). He sold over 70 million albums in his career, entertained US Army troops during the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1955-1975), and operated a music school for guitar in Nashville TN. He was elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1978, their Country Music Hall of Fame in 1979 and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989. Hank Snow stopped recording in 1985, retired from performing in the early 1990s and gave his last Grand Ole Opry performance in September 1996. He died at his home in Madison TN on December 20, 1999 at the age of 85.