“To look at me you’d think I didn’t have a care / But if tears were gold, I’d be a millionaire...” — Sally Sweeney
When Adam Sweeney first heard his grandmother utter that memorable phrase, he thought to himself, “that’s a country song!”
For her 90th birthday he helped her write that song, and if all goes according to plan, next month Adam will be returning to his childhood home west of Tenino to record a short film inspired by that song and the remarkable life of his late grandmother.
The song and the “musical family drama” short film are called “If Tears Were Gold.”
Adam, a 1999 W.F. West graduate, has been in bands since he was a teenager. A prolific songwriter whose folk band used to perform at the old Matrix Coffee House in Chehalis, Adam said his “Nana” would often make up memorable lines that she suggested he turn into a songs.
In 2016 he got serious about that. They wrote “If Tears Were Gold” during one of her many visits by train to his home in Portland. He wrote the music and helped her with lyrics.
“It came together really fast,” Adam recalls. “We were both so proud of it.”
Sally, who worked as an aircraft factory “Rosie the Riveter” in Rome, New York during World War II, was an energetic storyteller in her own right. She published her memoirs, "Hayseed," "Hayseed II," "Hayseed: Bicentennial" and "Tunnel Stiffs" with the assistance of personal biographer Julie McDonald Zander (who also writes a Chronicle column).
Sally moved to the Tenino area in the 1970s. She volunteered providing meals at the senior center in Rochester for many years.
She lived next-door to her son John Patrick "Pat" Sweeney and daughter-in-law Nancy Sweeney, as well as Adam and his sister Erin.
Adam, 43, describes his grandmother’s home as a fun place where they’d listen to Miles Davis records and have tea parties.
“It was a house of a lot of imagination,” Adam said. “She was a fun and creative person. She’d tell us a million stories about growing up when she was young.”
In the last two years of her life she developed dementia. With in-home care from family, including Adam, she was able to stay in her house until her death at age 97 on April 22, 2023.
Adam describes the film as “a young punk musician returns home to rural Washington State to help care for their aging Nana, Sally, who is troubled by music no one else can hear. As Sally's dementia deepens, a new song materializes uniting the family with a very unexpected and unlikely collaboration.”
Adam started writing the screenplay a year after she died. He had in mind his joyful childhood memories with her as well as the harder experiences of helping care for her during her final years.
“I think it’ll be happy and heartwarming,” Adam said about the film. “We don’t shy away from the difficulties of dealing with a loved one with dementia, so it’ll be a tearjerker as well, but ultimately it’ll be hopeful and uplifting.”
He has actors and a crew largely lined up to produce the film. He estimates the production costs at $25,000, and is asking for donations to help fund the project. If he can get a good chunk of the funds secured, he aims to film at Sally’s old house on Gibson Road west of Tenino in September.
“Once I started writing songs, Nana was my biggest fan,” Adam said. “She was my hero.”
With a country song, a film in the works and nearly a century of fun-loving life, the heroic legend of Sally Sweeney lives on.
Donations sought to make movie dream a reality
Adam Sweeney has a GoFundMe page to help raise the $25,000 it will cost to produce the short film he wrote about his grandmother and the song they wrote together. Learn more and donate at https://adamacreative.com/if-tears-were-gold/.
Brian Mittge can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
