FERRIDAY, La — An Abba CD croons
"Dancing Queen" as Frankie Jean Lewis Terrell reclines dreamily on a
plastic chair inside the convenience store she owns.
She ignores the stale smell of beer and gestures frantically behind
her, to the Lewis Family Museum.
"What do you do with a white elephant?"Terrell wants to know. A
lopsided grin spreads across her face. "You put it on display and have
a freak show."
Terrell knows her fair share about freak shows. She's the caretaker of
the Lewis Family Museum, a maverick stepchild to the official Southern
shrine of Graceland — something certain to irk its namesake Jerry Lee
Lewis, who outlived, but never outsold, Elvis Presley.
With her crooked smile, pale eyes and wild hair, Terrell looks
disarmingly similar to her famously rough brother, '50s rocker Lewis.
She closes her mouth and narrows her eyes into hyphen-sized slits.
"The
Lewis Family Museum is the biggest freak show there is," Terrell, 66,
preaches.
In Ferriday, a Concordia Parish town of about 4,000 some 13 miles west
of the Mississippi River, few people would disagree with Terrell's
pronouncement that the museum is a temple to the weird. In its
unapologetic display of one famous family's demons, the Lewis Family
Museum transforms the painful into the hilariously familiar.
Jerry Lee Lewis, who lives behind graffiti-covered walls on a ranch in
Nesbit, Miss., turned 70 in September. In 2005 he won a Grammy for
lifetime achievement. His star has waned, but the music hasn't died.
Lewis' next CD, "The Pilgrim," slated for release later this year,
likely will be his last. Twenty-two guest artists, including B.B. King,
Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton, recorded with the Killer.
The Lewis Family Museum affirms his ever-so-humble beginnings.
Alcohol,
drugs and lawlessness set the backdrop to the story of a poor
sharecropper's son. Lewis, turned child prodigy near rock 'n' roll's
advent.
They chronicle a crooner's rise from the violent, booze-soaked
nightclubs of Natchez, Miss., to his criminalization in the bars of
"Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire."
If sin had a soundtrack, it would sound very much like the wail of
Jerry Lee Lewis' piano absorbing rage, which is why Terrell also
believes people travel from all corners of the world — France, Japan,
Australia — to walk across the floors of Lewis family history.
"I guess people like that are a curiosity to all of us," says Joan
Svoboda, who visited from Nebraska. "How come people visiting Memphis
drive by Graceland?"
Unlike Graceland, the Ferriday museum has few rules. Visitors may roam
freely, from room to room. They may take photographs and touch most
everything, except the pianos.
One, its keys yellowed and jammed, is
the first Jerry Lee Lewis ever pounded, and it stands in a bedroom, its
lid covered with framed family photographs.
Terrell says that ghosts of
the living haunt this place, but the dead don't stick around. She keeps
glass bottles of whiskey atop a black baby grand piano in the sitting
room, a refusal to sugarcoat her brother's dangerous climb to stardom.
"Once you come see this house and take it all in, you're never the same
once you leave," says Terrell, who speaks with the frenetic pace of a
street preacher.
She confesses to curling up on her brother's bed at night, closing her
eyes and pretending that time is capable of stopping and rewinding. She
can listen to the past anytime she wants. She can replay it like a
record.
"At night when I close my eyes, I can hear Jerry playing the piano,"Terrell says. She e-mails her brother at least once a week, through her
sister, musician Linda Gail Lewis.
Ferriday's other famous former residents, Linda Gail Lewis, Jimmy Lee
Swaggart and Mickey Gilley, all enjoy corners of memorial in Terrell's
museum, in the family home.
Visitors may prowl the bedroom of Linda
Gail Lewis, touch her makeup brushes (left on a nightstand) or let
their fingers waltz across her dresses.
The museum pays little attention to Jerry Lee's marriage to his second
cousin, Myra Gale, when she was 13.
The scandal sank Lewis' career at a
time when some thought he would surpass Presley in popularity.
"You
don't get inducted into this hall of fame," Terrell cackles. "You get
indicted."
The infamous marriage license of Lewis and Myra Gale hangs
on a faux-wood paneled wall.
Visitors may think they've fallen through a portal to the 1950s. The
oven in the kitchen holds shellacked bread baked decades ago on a
Christmas morning by the now-deceased matriarch Mamie Lewis, who on
Sept. 29, 1935, birthed the Killer on a four-poster bed exhibited in
the home.
The highchair of the man whose music helped define rock sits
in the corner. His tattered baby clothes string a fine line above a
bed. Their presence proclaims that even Jerry Lee Lewis had to start
somewhere.
"It's strange how life goes on in other places and it just stops here,"
Terrell says sadly. "It's incredibly strange," she repeats.
Terrell says the home has always been a museum, but she officially
started giving tours in 1960, lately adding a small admission fee
because of rising costs. Her convenience store pays the taxes and
utilities.
A chronic pack rat, she could wallpaper three rooms with the letters
she has saved since the age of 11.
She claims to have started the
museum when she was 6 because she knew "Jerry Lee was special."
Neighbors came from miles to hear him play the piano, and Terrell
didn't want anyone to forget the music. That's why she stayed on in
Ferriday, a dust-laced Louisiana delta town about 100 miles north of
Baton Rouge.
"It's good to never change an address," Terrell says. "Jerry Lee can come back and see his baby shoes."
She keeps a house in Ferriday, but sleeps in the museum at night. She
eats all her meals in its kitchen. Even if she tried to leave, she says
she thinks the house would drag her back. The house isn't officially
haunted, but Terrell believes that memories, all great and terrible,
have enchanted its rooms.
After soaking up the Lewis saga — similar to a "Dallas" rerun minus the
millionaires — museum visitors may sit with Terrell in her convenience
store and drink something a Lewis would drink — usually whiskey, she
says. Fans enter for free. Critics have to pay a dollar and only get to
see one room. That's Terrell's rule.
Other Frankie Jean Quotes:
"...You
can't blackmail a Lewis...We tell all and we tell the truth...The town
can't stand us. They'll lie to you...anytime someone lies on a Lewis,
something bad happens to 'em...They named a damn cow trail after Jerry
in a white neighborhood...made me sing Little Richard songs--tore up
the check and the Decca contract--that was that...said I was
crazy--Crazy and glad for it...Mickey's known in the family as
Puss-Gut...We passed the nickname down from his father......got a hole
in my pants, wearing a shirt from the mission store, make 7 cents off a
dollar, and drawed $200 out of this store in 30 years...roots are in
the black neighborhood...work 14 hours a day...Pay taxes and die...two
things you're sure to do...Mickey makes no damn sense. I don't know why
Mickey's so arrogant...(Jimmy Swaggart) has a slush puppy with no
alcohol in it. I have a margarita every day..."
Most days you'll find "The Chiller" at the Lewis Family Museum, or next door, at the Pik-Quick Drive-Thru beer and liquor store. The proprietor is about 5ft., 5in., curly red poodle cut--you can see her resemblance to Jerry Lee. The Lewis clan is intermarried with Swagger and Galleys, televangelists and Urban Cowboys--Frankie Jean went her own way. Married at 11 and soon widowed, she has been Mrs. Marion Terrell for 43 years. She and her husband raised eight kids. Write to Frankie Jean @(she doesn't have email):
FERRIDAY, LA - Services for Jane Wilkinson, 67, of Ferriday, who died Thursday, Aug. 14, 2003, at Natchez Community Hospital, will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at Young's Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Mack Walker officiating. Burial will be in Greenlawn Memorial Park under the direction of Young's Funeral Home of Ferriday. The family will receive friends from 5 to 9 p.m. today at the funeral home. She was a resident of Ferriday, a homemaker, a beauty operator and a member of Ridgecrest Baptist Church. Mrs. Wilkinson was preceded in death by her father, Guy Mitcham; her mother, Sally McCaa; son, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr.; five brothers and two sisters. Survivors include her husband, Linous Wilkinson of Ferriday; two sons, Ronnie Lewis and wife, Melanie and Jimmy Wilkinson and wife, Debbie, all of Ferriday; five grandchildren, Somer Lance, Heather Barilleaux, Ronnie Lewis, Jr., Megan Wilkinson and Jimmy Wilkinson, II; great-grandchild, Ryan Lance; caregiver, Sissy Ferris; and a number of nieces, nephews and friends. Pallbearers will be Mike Grantham, Chuckie Deweese, Rickey Raven, Roy Lance, Billy Freeman, Bo Whittington, James King and Bobby Enterkin. Honorary pallbearers will be Dr. Jerry Iles, Hubert Lee McGlothin, Jimmy Kirven, Melton Pierre, Steve Hedrick and Gene Brashier.
"Jerry Lee Lewis Museum and Liquor Store, Ferriday, LA - 15 mi. A Ghost Town, Rodney, MS - 28 mi. The Windsor Ruins, Port Gibson, MS - 33 mi. ..."
Driving directions to 712 Louisiana Ave, Ferriday, LA 71334
106 mi – about 2 hours 49 mins
Suggested routes
US-61 N
106 mi 2 hours 49 mins
LA-19 N and US-61 N
111 mi 3 hours 1 min
LA-1 N and LA-15 N
120 mi 3 hours 5 mins
1. Head southeast on Hyacinth Ave toward Hibiscus Dr
161 ft
2. Take the 1st left onto Dahlia St
0.5 mi
3. Turn right at Pollard Pkwy
0.2 mi
4. Turn left at Perkins Rd
1.6 mi
5. Take the ramp onto I-10 W
1.8 mi
6. Slight left at I-110 N (signs for I-110 N/Downtown/Metro Airport)
8.9 mi
7. Take exit 8C to merge onto US-61 N toward Natchez
Entering Mississippi
79.8 mi
8. Slight left at John R Junkin Dr
Entering Louisiana
2.7 mi
9. Continue onto US-425 N/US-84 W
10.0 mi
10. Turn left at Louisiana Ave
Destination will be on the left
0.2 mi
712 Louisiana Ave
Ferriday, LA 71334
Father: Elmo Lewis, Sr. (convicted moonshiner, d. Jul-1979) Mother: Mamie Ethel Lewis (d. 1970) Sister: Linda Gail Lewis (singer, b. 18-Jul-1947) Brother: Elmo Lewis, Jr. (killed by drunk driver) Sister: Frankie Jean Lewis Terrell (curator, Jerry Lee Lewis Museum, b. 1944) Wife: Dorothy Barton (preacher's daughter, m. 21-Feb-1952, div. 8-Oct-1953) Wife: Jane Mitchum (m. 15-Sep-1953, sep. 1957, div. May-1958) Son: Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr. (b. 15-Sep-1953, d. 13-Nov-1973 car accident) Son: Ronnie Guy Lewis (drummer, "Suzie Q", b. 16-Mar-1956) Wife: Myra Gail Brown (Lewis' cousin, b. 1944, m. 12-Dec-1957, sep. Dec-1970, div. May-1971) Son: Steve Allen Lewis (b. 27-Feb-1959, d. Apr-1962 drowning) Daughter: Phoebe Allen Lewis (b. 1963) Wife: Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate (m. 1971, div. Dec-1973, d. Jun-1982 drowning) Wife: Shawn Michelle Stevens (m. 7-Jun-1983, d. 22-Aug-1983 methadone overdose) Wife: Kerrie McCarver (m. 24-Apr-1984, div. 2004) Son: Jerry Lee Lewis III (b. 28-Jan-1987) Girlfriend: Bonny Lee Bakley (groupie) Daughter: Jeri Lee Lewis (b. 28-Jul-1993, with Bakley) High School: (dropped out) Theological: Southwestern Bible Institute, Waxahachie, Texas (dropped out) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 1986 Rockabilly Hall of Fame Betty Ford Center Married an Underage Girl Bankruptcy $3.75 million in back taxes 1988 Drug Overdose Driving While Intoxicated Collierville, TN 22-Nov-1976 Reckless Driving Collierville, TN 22-Nov-1976 Driving without a License Collierville, TN 22-Nov-1976 Drunk in Public Memphis, TN 23-Nov-1976 Failure to Pay Child Support per 2003 lawsuit filed by Kerrie Risk Factors: Alcoholism, Cocaine, Marijuana"31°37′50″N 91°33′24″W" 31°37′50″N 91°33′24″W Municipalities MACK VICKERY Concordia Parish Louisiana 318-757-2460 "712 Louisiana Avenue" "Ferriday LA" Vidalia Ferriday Monterey FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll (18-Sep-1987) Himself American Hot Wax (17-Mar-1978) Himself High School Confidential! (30-May-1958) Himself
I've been loving you since you were sweet 16 Good lookin' woman Jerry Lee ever seen C'mon girl you got my heart a really jamming Go ahead and keep my mother humping motor running Lets go why don't you put it on the floor Woman you really got me humming keep my motor running
I got fuel injections Jerry Lee's got front wheels I've got completed systems on this time you'll really love the feel Satin sheets crawl up and down my lovely bed If you lift the pillow you can lay your lovely head lets go, whoopee, put it on the floor really got me humming, keep my motor Oh go Rock and roll baby yeah, you really got ol' killer hummin
