I live in Clarksville and there was definitely no 12 to 18 inches of snow. At the most it was 4 inches. The last time I have seen snow here this high was in the winter of 1967-68. 1979 was supposedly that high to, but then we were in Germany. Also Clarksville is not north of Nashville, but north-west
We ultimately ended up with about 4 1/2 inches (at least in SE Nashville). Took about 6 days to melt it all. The last time, I believe, we got over 6” was in the ‘80s. The large snow you were talking about in ‘79 was the year before, IIRC, in early ‘78. I was about 4 years old, remember going out all bundled up to play in it. I obviously wasn’t around for the snow in the ‘60s, so can’t comment on that. ;-)