Singing Stream: Reunion (2016)—Transcription
Edited by Daniel W. Patterson
Key to Typefaces:
Italic type indicates footage from the 1986 film “A Singing Stream.”
Roman type indicates footage shot for its 2016 sequel “Reunion.”
Anything in this Arial bold font is based on a caption from the film itself, normally identifying a place or person.
Key to People
The 1986 “Singing Stream” presents Bertha and Coy Landis and seven of their eleven children.
The 2016 “Reunion” has a much larger cast of participants, and captions frequently remind viewers of their names and parentage. This genealogical information is not repeated again and again in the transcript below. Instead, I summarize the relationships here: Two children of Bertha and Coy appear in both “A Singing Stream” and “Reunion.” They are Claude Landis and Priscilla Daniel, both of whom live near Creedmoor, North Carolina. In the second film we see Claude’s daughter Lisa Landis Hunt, and Priscilla’s three sons—Kenneth, Dennis, and Efrem—and their wives and children. The children of the late Fleming Landis (who had moved to Akron, Ohio) appear frequently in the “Reunion” film, filmed both in Akron and in Creedmoor: Iverson “Junnie” Landis, Karen Landis Stallings, and Sharon Landis Humphreys. Children of Jessie Mae Tharrington of North Carolina also appear frequently in “Reunion”: Shirley Tharrington and Artreatha Tharrington Plummer. Cassandra Lynch, daughter of Zenas Landis of Virginia, speaks in some scenes. The film shows many other grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren of Bertha and Coy Landis—their descendants by many of their various children—but only rarely identified by name in the film, though named where possible in the transcription below
The opening footage comes from the family-reunion church service in the 1986 Singing Stream film:
Rock Spring Baptist Church, Granville County, North Carolina
Choir, congregation, and organ, Andraé Crouch’s “Trusting in Jesus”:
Jesus, calling to Jesus—
Jesus in my soul.
For I have touched the hem of his garment,
And his blood has made me whole
Jesus, trusting in Jesus—
Jesus in my soul.
For I have touched the hem of his garment,
And his blood has made me whole.
MINISTER (reading from a plaque to give Bertha Landis):
For her dedication and meritorious service from the B.G.H.L.L. Reunion 1985
BERTHA LANDIS: I was one of the founders of this family reunion. Myself, my husband Coy Landis, and my mother-in-law, his mother, Lula Landis Bullock Eaton—we organized this reunion, we talked about it, and we acted about it, and we got it going. And it’s still going. And when I’m gone to heaven, it will still be going on.
A Singing Stream
REUNION
The Legacy of Bertha Mangum Landis of Creedmoor, North Carolina
Congregational Song: “Union in Heaven” (traditional)
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong.
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong.
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong.
Oh, I belong to that union band.
There’s singing in the Heaven, where I belong.
There’s singing in the Heaven, where I belong.
There’s singing in the Heaven, where I belong.
I belong to that union band.
Sometimes I’m up. . . .
(Discussion between several of Bertha Landis’s grandchildren about the numbers printed on a family T-shirt Dennis Daniel is wearing)
SHIRLEY THARRINGTON: “46, 46 great-grandchildren, 11 great-great-grandchildren, 27 grandchildren, 11 children.” But by now of course, these numbers have changed, since 2000.
DENNIS DANIEL: In 2000, half of this here wasn’t here. Well, I mean everybody who’s thirteen years old wasn’t even here.”
EVERETT SMITH, a close family friend: Ten or fifteen years, ten or fifteen great-grandchildren.
(Conversation continues)
YOUNGSTERS WALKING DOWN THE DRIVEWAY TOGETHER: Great-grandchildren, Yay!
On the fourth weekend in August, Bertha’s and Coy’s descendants gather for a family reunion, their tradition since 1934
EFREM DANIEL, offering a prayer in the yard before the meal: Dear Father, we thank You for this food that we’re about to receive for the nourishment of our bodies and the up-building of Thy kingdom. We pray that You bless and sanctify it in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
EVERYONE: Amen.
EFREM DANIEL: They ask that the senior citizens go first. Parents, please fix your children’s plate. Fall in line after that.
(Scenes from the picnic, including some women and children dancing to “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. Shots of the family getting itself arranged for a group photograph)
DENNIS DANIEL: Come over some. To your right a little, and then forward.” (Offering a prayer): We’re so grateful for what Grandma and Grandpa poured into us—that we would seek You and seek after You, Lord God—and the values they instilled in our lives, Lord God. And we thank You for this opportunity that You’ve given us to come back as a family, Father God, and take this picture, Lord God. Thank You for everything You’re doing in our lives, everything that You’re building in our lives, building back in our relationships, Father God. We give You all the glory and the praise in Jesus’ name, Amen.
EVERYONE: Amen.
(The group disbands and the scene fades into another.)
BERTHA LANDIS (speaking in the 1986 film over shots of Fleming and his gospel quartet “Five Golden Voices” in Akron and of John and Claude Landis and their quartet “The Golden Echoes” in Creedmoor): I guess I told you that I had a large family. Eight boys and three girls. As the boys grew up, I saw that they had a talent for singing. I began to realize that they had a singing stream coming from both sides of the family. I wanted them to grow up and be involved in something that was worthwhile and something that would bring them joy and happiness as they grew up in years. So I began to teach them.
Fleming’s brothers Claude and Tony and his nephew Kenneth Daniel lived near the home farm
FLEMING LANDIS leading CLAUDE, TONY, and KENNNETH in singing “Jezebel” (Golden Gate Quartet):
Jezebel ...Jezebel ...Jezebel ... Oh, Jezebel
God’s got tired of your wicked ways.
You know the angels in heaven done numbered your days.
He said your evil deeds—God done got tired.
You got to go to judgment and stand the trial.
You got to go to judgment and stand the trial.
You got to go to judgment and stand the trial. . . .
Two of Bertha’s grandchildren reminiscing about family deaths and funerals
IVERSON “JUNNIE” LANDIS: We were all involved in all of our uncles’ and aunts’ funeral services. When Uncle Truzelle died, we all came together and did it. Uncle John, Uncle Tony, Uncle James, my dad.
ARTREATHA THARRINGTON PLUMMER: I’ll tell you something that was weird about Uncle John’s funeral. I guess we didn’t know—or some of us didn’t know, many of us didn’t know—that when we walked in the church, they were playing the “Singing Stream.” So when we were coming in, and I came in, I heard my mother talking.
Scene from the 1984 film in which her mother and others are sitting around a table looking at photographs:
JESSIE MAE THARRINGTON: My husband was in the service and we got married.
BERTHA LANDIS, her mother: And he got to preaching in the service, and she didn't know it.
JESSIE MAE: I never wanted to marry a preacher or a doctor.
PRISCILLA LANDIS DANIEL, her sister: And no one that ate chitlins!
ARTREATHA THARRINGTON PLUMMER: It was a little rattling for a while. And then to emotionally go step by step through that movie and see so many of them that had gone. It was like—and then to hear him sing!
(Scene from the 1986 film, shot in the school auditorium during the Reunion weekend)
JOHN LANDIS, leader of The Golden Echoes in their 1983 Anniversary Concert in Creedmoor singing “The Old Rugged Cross” (George Bennard):
To that old rugged cross I will ever be true
Oh, its shame and reproach gladly bear
(over scene: John Landis at his mother’s funeral in 2000. He died in 2006)
God’s gonna call me someday (I’m not worried about it)
To my home far away,
Where his glory forever, Lord, I’ll share.
ARTREATHA THARRINGTON PLUMMER: You look back and say, “Wow, that was beautiful.” But that day I was tore up because, you know you think you’re prepared for this, and we had went through—what, one?—already, ‘cause Uncle Truzelle died first.
(over scene from the Bertha Landis funeral)
And then right after him, Uncle John, so you know we’re like two funerals, and then with that one, then the next one was right after that.
Near Creedmoor, North Carolina, Claude Landis, Bertha’s youngest son
(in a car on the way to the family cemetery)
CLAUDE LANDIS: See people used to build houses long time ago, the kitchen was off from the rest of the house. That’s one back there. Show it to you maybe when we come back or something. But the kitchen wasn’t attached to the rest. You had to walk about eight or ten yards or steps, and then you’d be in the kitchen. That’s the way they built houses long time ago. (laughing)
(over scene, a glimpse of Claude with his mother in the 1986 Singing Stream)
In fact we lived in one new house that I remember we lived in when we moved to the home house now—that’s the way it was built. Turn right. No, no, that's the church. I live right here. Yeah, right
Group in the Landis Family Cemetery, including Claude and Priscilla, the last surviving children of Bertha and Coy
KENNETH DANIEL: “When I was a kid, my grandfather used to bring me down here. And at that time, it was just a field. And so I had no clue what this was at the time. Like I said, this was probably when I was seven or eight years old. We try to keep it as organized and laid out as possible.
KENNETH DANIEL: It’s hard.
CLAUDE LANDIS: It’s real hard to do. Especially an old cemetery that’s been there a hundred, hundred-and-fifty years. They just go out and bury them, and then we have to come behind them and figure it out.
KENNETH DANIEL: I think I’ve got all the graves in this cemetery identified, except I think it’s two or three that I don’t know who’s in them, and all the people that know, they’re gone on. So I don’t know.
PRISCILLA LANDIS DANIEL, looking at the gravestone of her husband James C. Daniel: He asked for me. She told him, “I don’t have a daughter to give away.” (Laughing.) He said, “Well, I'll just take her.” Like it says on there, he was a Christian husband, good father, and a good grandfather. It’s been four years, and I still miss him.
Priscilla’s home on the original Landis farm, next to the home house
(Dennis Daniel’s girls playing near their grandmother’s home; then inside the home of Priscilla Daniel, with her three sons and their wives—the youngest son Efrem and his wife Tonya, the oldest son Kenneth and his wife Bronzella, and the middle son Dennis and his wife Donna and their older daughter Alease,
PRISCILLA DANIEL, leading “There’s Union in the Heaven” (Traditional)
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong
Oh, I belong to that union band
(over a glimpse of Priscilla in 1983 in the upholstery shop she and her husband had next to their house)
There’s free grace a-plenty, where I belong.
There’s free grace a-plenty, where I belong.
There’s free grace a-plenty, where I belong.
Oh, I belong to that union band.
Oh, sister, didn’t I tell you so,
I belong to that union band
(Priscilla has a moment of forgetfulness and they all chuckle or smile)
I belong to that union band.
There’s union in the Heaven, where I belong.
There’s union in the heaven, where I belong.
There is union in the Heaven, where I belong.
Oh, I belong to that union band.
DENNIS DANIEL (in car): I come from a family where my mom had eleven in her family. And my father had thirteen. So I had twenty-four aunts and uncles between my two parents! So I come from just a big family. And you probably don’t know it, but the Daniel and Johnson Reunion, which is my father’s side, they—we’re going on over fifty years. We celebrated fifty years, three years ago, of family reunions.
Conclusion of the graveyard scene
KENNETH DANIEL: Uncle W.C., when he passed away, they brought him back here to be buried. Uncle Zenas, who lived in Virginia, he’s actually buried in Virginia.
(Scene shifts to the home of Kenneth and Bronzella Daniel)
So it just kinda depends. Basically he’s always looked at, he spent more time in Virginia than he did here. It’s like when Uncle Fleming passed away, he’s actually buried in Ohio.
Fleming at his mother’s funeral in 2000, and Fleming’s Family in Akron
FLEMING LANDIS, leading the song “Union in Heaven” (Traditional)
I belong to that union band
I know there is free grace for granted, where I belong
There is free grace for granted, where I belong.
IVERSON “JUNNIE” LANDIS (over early photographs of men working in a tire factory): I remember him telling me that he used to cure tires. That involved a lot of heat. Once the tire has been molded, his job was to reach into the machine and pull the tire out of the mold. He used to say he had to use, wear these big thick gloves, and it was just real hot, real hot where he worked at.
KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS (at work in a restaurant in Akron): This is how we do it here, just like daddy and them did it on their little small grill. We just do it on a larger scale. The best soul food in town. Macaroni and cheese, greens, yams, potato salad, coleslaw. We make our own homemade pound cakes, peach cobblers, banana puddings. All of our own, everything homemade, all homemade desserts. Nothing is bought in.
(continues, resting on a couch at home, V/O shots of Fleming’s family arriving at Bertha’s home for the 1983 reunion)
We spent some real summers, me and Junnie, spent some summers down there, so we got a real feel of farm working, slopping hogs, the chickens in the chicken house. Grandma—we had to go up there—and Grandma didn’t never go in that chicken house and just grab a chicken. She never did. When she went in, she was making that noise. (Clucking.) And she had that wire, and I would be behind her with that, and I was like thinking to myself, “Just get one, Grandma. There’s—what?—about a thousand of them in here. Just grab any one.” Well, she had to walk around and look at them. Then she would grab them with that hook and pull them to her. She grabbed it round the neck, and she wrung like two times. (Demonstrating.) She just like that, and she had the head in her hand, the chicken went running, and she just let them run till they fall down, and she just threw the heads out there in the yard. And being a city kid, that was like, “Oh—my—God!” Chickens, and, oh, the cleaning of it.
BERTHA LANDIS: We raised some of everything to eat. Sweet potatoes, canned food, cows, milk, butter, chicken. And time come for us to pay what we was supposed to pay, we could go ahead and pay it. And if the tobacco didn’t do nothing—at the time we moved in, tobacco died. A third of our crop died. And sometimes we didn’t get over a half a crop, but if you had a plenty of food, they’d carry you on over to the next year.
Creedmoor, in Granville County, North Carolina, about twenty-five miles from the Raleigh-Durham area
DENNIS DANIEL, driving: Those were farms and fields, and now we got a Subway, Food Lion, and a car wash within five miles of where I grew up. So it’s changed a lot. Creedmoor is growing up. It’s one of the fastest-growing areas around. (He parks his car at the City Hall.) And quite honestly, a black mayor. I think outside of Durham—Durham has a black mayor—one of the first black mayors in this area. And he’s my classmate.
DARRYL MOSS, Mayor of Creedmoor (in his office): When Dennis called me about this conversation—and I will tell you this is one question I thought about a lot—our generation (I will never be president) but our generation—and Barack’s in our generation. He’s late forties, mid to late forties—it’s what we were raised to do. I mean Dennis’s parents, my parents, my wife’s parents, there was a constant drumming in our heads day in, day out, that we could do and we could be anything that we wanted to be.
DENNIS DANIEL (over shots of family members voting in different decades, on the desegregation of Granville County schools in the late 1960s): I remember Ms. Moore and all those teachers, especially when integration was about to happen. Ms. Murphy, they were just, “You're going to make it!” And it wasn't just that. These same teachers were who we saw in our communities. We saw them at church, they were teaching us in Sunday School. They were teaching us. They were our principals. They were our teachers. They were in our community. You have a constant reinforcement of what education means, and what was expected of you.
DARRYL MOSS: My grandfather’s mother was Kate, very dark-skinned lady. His—my Granddad’s—dad was Robert O. Moss. He was a white man. We actually have a picture of them. It gets even more interesting. As a result of our connections to that, to the white side of our family—this is early on when I got elected, Mayor or something, I forget—the Daughters of the American Confederacy were having an event and called and said, “Darryl, we need you to bring your Dad, because we’re going to give him this medal.” Because it turns out one of our relatives on that side was a Confederate soldier. So they wanted to give us his award.
DENNIS DANIEL: His award!
The Landis Home Place near Creedmoor (with lawnmower running back and forth)
BERTHA LANDIS, over historical photographs: If a black man wanted to buy a home, he couldn’t buy it ‘cause they wouldn’t sell him no home. And as time went on, this Farm Security Administration—that was going on then in other counties and other states. But Granville County didn’t know nothing about it. And I was reading the paper one day, and I saw it in there. And I told my husband, I said, “Here’s a writing in here that we can buy a home.” He said, “We can’t buy no home. We ain’t able.” So I read it to him. I said, “We can go put in our application.” I said, “Let’s try.” So we went and put in our application, and out of three hundred, they combed it down to twenty. Then they combed it down to ten. And out of that ten was four black and six white. And we was one of the black, and the other people around, didn’t believe it. (Laughing.) They didn't believe we could do that! But we did. So that was the beginning of people, black people buying homes.
CLAUDE LANDIS: It was a couple of trees here, and a couple of trees here one time. We got those up because they was getting so large, and they was real close to the house, and we left one. I remember Daddy, my daddy planted those trees, and also the ones Daddy took out. He planted all those trees.
KENNETH DANIEL: It used to be a tree right there.
CLAUDE LANDIS: Yep.
KENNETH DANIEL: It used to be a tree right there. And right there, and right there where that round hole is.
KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS: It was one tree that was over here, that we always took pictures in front of, remember?
KENNETH DANIEL: It sure was, yep, yep. That big tree. And remember the stage was set up over there. Pecan tree was right there. Right there, and then it was another tree right there, and it was another one on the corner.
First cousins visiting at Kenneth Daniel’s house after Bertha’s funeral in 2000
CASSANDRA LYNCH, daughter of Zenas Landis: But you all that lived here, I’m not going to say it wouldn’t make a difference to you all. But for me coming from Virginia—knowing that I come every summer in August, and this is where I go—I would be hurt if I knew that’s not where I’m going. You know, I really would be.
DENNIS DANIEL: But you know something, I would hate to think of that, but you know I hated it when I had to push that chicken house over back there.
CASSANDRA LYNCH: You know I remember driving up in August and Grandmama wringing that chicken’s neck. “Come on and eat him.” “Naw, Grandmama, you just killed that chicken. I ain’t eating it.” (laughing)
DENNIS DANIEL (over photo of a plat showing the division of the original Landis farm among the children of Bertha and Coy): But the bottom line is that, if it’s not there, it will be here. Oh yeah, it’s going be on this land. It’s going be on this land, because all of us own some of this land. So it might not be that house over there, but Ken’s got a place, and Mama’s got a place, and we got land back here. And Uncle Claude’s got land, we all got land here. We would love for it to be right there. But there’s no guarantees, and land is one of the things that has been a problem in transitioning families. Especially the generation that you’re seeing happening now. Especially the grandchildren.
CLAUDE LANDIS (at the home place): One of my brothers [Truzelle], he actually owned this house. It was, it came down to him owning the house. But he got sick, so we had to put him in a home. And you can’t own certain things, property, anything, so we had to sell, we had to sell the place. I asked my daughter about it. She didn’t really want it, nothing like that. He was about to go, so she finally said, “I'll give it a try.” So she got it, and we just kept it awhile, and finally now, at this time in her life she wants to try to do something with it.
LISA LANDIS HUNT, Claude’s daughter, who teaches school in Raleigh: I do remember spending the night over here a lot, my cousins and I. I remember in particular Sylvia and I would be in that room over there with Grandma. She had two twin beds in the room, and Sylvia and I would sleep on one bed, and Grandma would be on the other bed, and those were my memories.
LISA LANDIS [HUNT] and SYLVIA LANDIS [VASS], daughter of John Landis, in 1983, singing “Please Be Patient with Me” (by Sim Wilson):
Please be patient with me,
God is not through with me yet.
Please be patient with me,
God is not through with me yet.
But when God gets through with me,
When God gets through with me,
I shall come forth,
I shall come forth like pure gold.
LISA LANDIS HUNT (recalling games they played as children, over shots of family children in 1983): Playing “Hide-and-Seek,” “Butter Bread, Come to Supper,” hiding that switch and saying, “You’re hot, you’re warm, you’re cold,” and finding the switch, and playing that game. I do remember that as well. So, all good memories.
PHILLIP DANIEL, Kenneth’s son, shooting at a target on the home place: Fire in the hole! (examining the target and conversing Kenneth, Kenneth’s friend Everett Smith, and Phillip’s son Justin): I’ll have one come Thanksgiving. Oh, we’ll see, kill it now. That’s the first shot. That’s the second shot. Anything in that area, is meat on the ground. (Laughing.) Well, at least I do know my stuff is tied in. The only thing I can do is put it in the bag.
KENNETH DANIEL: All of this was farm land, and this used to be a tobacco field. When I was growing up, you had to physically go to each stalk, and you had to know which leaves were ripe and which ones weren’t. So the ones that you needed to get were normally yellow or turning yellow, and the ones that you needed to leave were green. So you would go out in a field, say probably maybe four times to prime to get all the leaves off. Start off with the bottom priming (they call them ground leaves), and you would start there, and once you got that off, then the next time you would come back and you would get the next three or four leaves off. And you would come back the next time and get the next three or four. Then the next time you come back, you can get them all. I don’t know, in the future it might be some of the family members that move back here—you know, later on. But right now, everybody that’s here is probably the ones that’s going to be here for a while.
Research Triangle, North Carolina, about thirty miles from the home farm
DENNIS DANIEL (sitting in an office): I manage a team of guys who manage projects. So I manage a region: Virginia, West Virginia, Louisville, Kentucky. I have projects in Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina. All of those projects relate to technology. It’s either us changing our software out, providing new solutions for them, developing mobile applications. Ken and I been in business together, three or four businesses. They say family and business—maybe you shouldn’t. But he and I have always been good at dividing and keeping those things generally separate. Business is business, family is family, friends are friends. When you get a brother you can be in business with, it’s trust, you don’t have to worry about some things.
Fleming Landis’s daughters rehearse with their “Echoes of Heaven” gospel group in Akron, Ohio
(left to right, SHARON LANDIS HUMPHREY, KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS, LADORA WALLACE, NETTRA BUTLER, and PHYLLIS ALEXANDER singing a portion of “Sweeping through the City” by James Herndon, made popular by Evangelist Shirley Caesar of Durham, N.C.):
. . . my captain has gone before
And we’re gonna sit down by the banks of the river;
I won’t be back,
I won’t be back,
I won’t be back no more, no more.
I found a blessed Savior, Oh yeah.
My burdens got so heavy,
And I had no place to go.
I called on King Jesus in my distress.
He never failed me yet.
You know I found a Savior.
Oh, Lord, I found.
Wonder did you find?—I found a Savior.
Wonder did you find?—I found a Savior.
You can find him in the morning.
You can find him late at night.—I found a Savior.
I found him on a Wednesday evening.
I came to the end of myself, Ooh ooh.
No where else I could go, Ooh ooh
So I went to him on this night, Ooh ooh.
Thirty years ago, Ooh ooh Ooh ooh.
Oh, I could tell Him I found—I found a Savior.
Oh Lord, I found I found a Savior.
You can find him in the morning—I found a Savior.
Find Him late at night—I found a Savior. . . .
KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS: I get up at 4:00. I’m at work at 5:00. I work at the hospital from 5 a.m. to 1:30. And at the second job, I work in the kitchen. I work from 2:30 to 10:30 or 2:30 to 11:00. Something like that. But on Fridays and Saturdays, that place is open until 4 a.m. So there have been some instances where I had to leave the hospital at 1:30, and go straight to the kitchen over there, and I would stay there until 11 o’clock—what I thought was going to be 11 o’clock turned into the 4 a.m. So I had to stay there until 4 a.m., leave them behind to clean up, come home, change my clothes, and go straight back to the hospital.
(Over pictures of the Reunion picnic in the 1986 film)
I have always chose and kept in the fourth weekend of August out of all my time, I would choose that. That’s the one vacation. If we went nowhere else, we was in North Carolina on that fourth weekend in August. See who cut their hair, who got gray hair, who got—you know what I’m saying. Who gained weight, who lost weight. Who’s here and who’s not here. Who’s gone on.
Reunion Sunday Service for the Landises and four other families
KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS, with other family members, singing “Lord, Please Remember Me” (The Jackson Southernaires):
Lord, I’ve been singing your praises, day after day
While I travel this old lonesome narrow way
Lord, I need you to hold my hands,
And help me gain the victory.
But when it’s all over, Lord, remember me.
Sometimes on life’s journey, you know my burdens,
They get hard to bear.
But Lord, you promised that if I would live right,
You would answer my prayer.
Lord I thank You, You saved my soul,
So that one day, Lord, I’d be free.
And when it’s all over, Lord, remember me.
Oh, remember me when I’m old and feeble.
Oh thank You, Lord. Lord, remember me.
KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS: I remember before we really started singing, I remember mocking Uncle John. We would just be playing as kids and singing his songs and acting like him, and just you know—it was so fun! And we got grown and start really singing, that was like—amazing! And to be able to get up there and sing with him! To me he was like a superstar.
Karen in the 1986 film, and her Uncle John Landis and the Golden Echoes in their Saturday night Anniversary Concert during a family reunion weekend, singing “Going Up to Meet Him” ” (Traditional):
You and you. And you. And you. And you.
Mother will you meet me there?
Sister will you meet me there?
Brother will you meet me there?
Echoes are gonna be there
Singing everywhere
Oh going up to meet him
Going up to meet him
Gonna meet me there
I wonder will you meet me there?
Wonder will you meet me there?
Gonna meet me there?
Will you meet me there?
Going up to meet him.
The other young women from “The Echoes of Heaven,” have been beckoned to come from the audience onto the stage. They take over the microphones, backing up Karen:
When I came to the river and I been baptized,
My soul has been converted, and right now I feel all right.
I'm going up to meet him, going up to meet him,
Going up to meet him, going up to meet him. . . .
BERTHA LANDIS: These old songs, even though they’re old, every time they’re sung, they sound new. It’s just like the Bible. You can take the Bible and read it over and over, and every time you read the word of God, it’s new. It never gets old.
Synama Grove Baptist Church, founded by slaves in the 1860s
KENNETH DANIEL (conducting a choir rehearsal): All the choirs that are there, I have to rehearse them, get them prepared, teach them songs, get the musicians prepared. Here, teaching “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross” (Fanny Crosby and William Doane):
Jesus, keep me near the cross,
If everyone would do that—
There a precious fountain—
Free to all, a healing stream—
Flows from Calvary’s mountain.
God has chosen mothers
To bring life into this world.
KENNETH DANIEL (V/O): It’s a pretty time consuming job. But you know, I do it because I really love to do it. (Choir chatting, and singing.)
KENNETH DANIEL singing “I Give Myself Away” (William McDowell):
I give myself away
I give myself away so you can use me
I give myself away. . . .
Kenneth Daniel and his wife Bronzella in their home
KENNETH (who works for BB&T Bank as a telecom engineer, over shots of him playing an electric guitar with “The Golden Echoes” in 1983): I had a lot of opportunities, but just thinking about, I guess, the stability—and not to say that you weren’t good enough to do it, but you just got to be willing to take that risk. And during that time frame, you know, I was young. I was married and raising a family and just didn’t want to take that risk. Now if I was by myself, probably be another story, because you know, you take a chance, and maybe if you didn’t play this week, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. (Laughing.) But when you’re married and you don’t play this week, it might not be groceries. (Laughing.) So it’s a little different, so that was one of the things that kind of kept, I guess, kept me from really going out there hardcore even though doing something like that would probably be the job of a dream—just playing music and being able to make your living doing that.
Iverson “Junnie” Landis, visiting Akron, where he was born
IVERSON (driving): You see I’ve always lived away. After high school, I moved, went to California, and then I lived in North Carolina the first time, then moved to Massachusetts, then moved to Oklahoma, then back to Ohio, and then back to North Carolina.
(V/O shot of Iverson Landis, seated, with his cousins in North Carolina, Reunion weekend, 1983)
So I’ve done that. I always, since I was eighteen, I’ve always lived away so I don’t really miss it. Now what we’re getting ready to pass now is the Quaker, the old Quaker Oats building. These old silos, they used to cook and hold the actual grain for making oatmeal. That’s what that building was. So what they did is, they actually went in and restored the whole building and now it’s a hotel. It’s like a four- or five-star hotel. In fact, we actually stayed there when my dad died.
The Akron church where Iverson and his wife Kim served as pastors
And there’s our church. New Covenant Christian Center. Oh it’s very different. (Traffic.) Kim had mentioned a booklet of “A Hundred Years of Ministry” on this corner. And this is a booklet that her and some of the other ladies have put together. And what it does, it kind of goes through the history of the two churches.
IVERSON’S CHILD (seeing the parents’ picture in the book): Mommy and Daddy!
(V/O) Can I wear your sunglasses? Thank you.
IVERSON (pointing to pictures in the booklet): This is one of the pastors, and this is actually what the church looked like in the late 1800s. I, I was actually a cocaine addict before I got saved. I moved to—when I moved to California, I got involved with some of the wrong people, and they taught me how to what we call, what is known now as, free-basing, free-basing cocaine. And got strung out, and was strung out for about, probably about eight years. And actually was strung out when I met Kim. But I always knew—it’s just awesome how God is!—because I always knew in my heart that at one point I would pastor. And I checked myself into a drug rehab, and I sat in back of the, sat in back of the room, and when the minister came he was praying. He played “Amazing Grace” on the violin. At that point—a lot of people don't believe in miracles—he gave a salvation call, and so I went up. And he put his hand on my forehead. And I had never seen this guy before in my life. And his words were that, “God sent me here to tell you, that you are to pastor.” And it was like, it was so—I mean it was just enlightening! Because a week before, I told Kim those very same words. And from that point, I never touched a pipe, or anything like that. And so it was a miraculous conversion.
Iverson, now in North Carolina, operates a pavement-striping business. He lives with his family in his Aunt Doshie Landis Winston’s house close by the home farm. Iverson rehearses with the family choir, Reunion weekend in Creedmoor.
IVERSON LANDIS, singing: “There’s a Storm Out on the Ocean” (variously credited)
Drifting away, Lord,
Drifting away,
Drifting away, Lord,
Drifting away.
If your soul's not anchored in Jesus,
You will surely drift away.
Praise the Lord, everybody!
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, everybody!
Praise the Lord!
MIXED CONVERSATION (after the service): Did you take the $25 flight to get out? (Laughing.)
Why am I the last one to get here? (Children playing.)
Creedmoor Country Club, site of the Friday night Reunion Party
DENNIS DANIEL: This country club, every time I pull up here, I have to wonder about it, because this was a segregated country club for the longest time. There was a long time before I would even come to this place because when they first, for the longest time it was like a bastion to segregation.
CASUAL CONVERSATION:
“Where you going man?”
“Huh?”
“Where you going?”
“I'm going around the car.”
“Oh okay.” (Laughing.)
DENNIS DANIEL: So it was a golf club, and they did not allow minority members. So when I was growing up in high school, we didn’t come here, we weren’t around here. So when we had our first Class Reunion, they wanted to have it here, and a lot of the black students didn’t want to come because it was just a memory, a reminder of the segregation when we were growing up. But eventually we all agreed. We said, “It’s gone past. They’ve integrated, and we should go ahead.” I play golf here. It’s changed.
Friday night Reunion “Meet and Greet” Party at the Creedmoor Country Club
Kenneth Daniel’s son Phillip is the D.J.
Glimpse of Phillip as a child in the 1986 film.
Extended sequence showing family members dancing to a recording of “Wobble” (V.I.C)
KAREN LANDIS STALLINGS: When you go for family reunion everybody is there. Everybody is there and you think, “Wow, I'm going stay down here ‘cause it is so much fun.” Well, on that Monday morning and Tuesday, everybody went home, and we woke up and went outside. It was like, “Well, where the rest of the kids?” “Well, you know, ‘Reatha and them, they had to go back to Connecticut.” And everybody was gone, and you was here by yourself. And it was kind of, it was different.
DENNIS (telling his daughters where to sit in the car): Yeah, come to the other side. Go to the other side. Both of y’all get on the same side
(His daughters sit together in the back seat of his car.)
Dennis Daniel lived in New Jersey for five years. He married his wife Donna there.
DENNIS: I only wanted to be up there five years. Along the way I just had this yearning to come back down here from New Jersey. It never really felt like it was home. So as soon as I could, I got back down and went to Raleigh, and not long after that, Donna got a job out in Oxford at Revlon, and she was commuting back and forth up Highway 50. It was a two-lane highway. I said, “Look, instead of us commuting, you commuting back and forth, with the baby, why don't we move to Creedmoor, and then I can commute—‘cause at the time I was traveling a lot, and all I needed to do was get to the airport. So that’s when we moved back out to Creedmoor.
Dennis Daniel on his marriage
When we decided to get married and let them know, I remember it was—boy, it was kind of a shocker. We had the entire family over to our condo, and Donna told them. The sisters were kind of cool. The in-laws—brother-in-laws—were cool. But Mama and Daddy weren’t cool. You could see definitely Mama was having problems. She was fine with us dating, but she never thought it would lead to marriage. She was trying to get Donna to understand that America doesn’t treat black folks right. This is basically what it is. America doesn’t treat black folks right, and you’re getting ready to marry a black guy. So if they’re not treating him right, that means you’re gonna get some of that. And you’re my daughter, and I want the best for you. I can tell you up until that day, we did not think that her Mom was gonna come. I’m not sure when Donna really realized that her Mom was actually gonna be there, but she had pretty much until the last minute, she hadn’t made a big deal about it, she just—“I don’t believe that you should get married, and I’m not gonna participate. I’m not gonna pay for it, and I’m not gonna come.” So, sure enough, she does. It was a great wedding, and we were in our ‘20s and ‘30s. You know we got friends, and the world has changed. And it’s just a smorgasbord of people, young yuppies, and my family, good fifty percent of the people were my family, but then all these people from work, and black and white, and old and young, males and females, and it’s just this theme. If you were to look at the pictures, if you look at some of the pictures over at Mama’s house, you will see it. It’s just this, it was the direction of how the country was going and is going. And at the party, her Mom came to us, and she says, “I was wrong. I didn’t think this is what it would be. You know, everybody’s so happy, and it’s so many different people. Just, I didn’t see it that it was going to be this way.” And it was just good for her to see that—it’s not perfect, and it wasn’t perfect then, and it’s not perfect now—but that it had changed.
(Car pulling up)
The Daniel brothers and their families come together after church on Sundays at their mother’s home.
(FAMILY CONVERSATION, as men enter the living room, as Dennis’s daughters Alease and Olivia talk at the kitchen stove, and as the family members eat dinner at the table.)
DENNIS DANIEL: Our children were over there. It’s like when we grew up. It’s the equivalent of what happened when we grew up. You’re so close to your Grandma that you would spend time there. So Efrem’s children, [Kenneth’s] Kristy and Phillip, and my children, they all have this affection and affinity for Mama.
The Reunion Sunday Service at Synama Baptist Church, 2011, with Bertha and Coy Landis’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren as a family choir.
KRISTY DANIEL WILLIAMS, Kenneth’s daughter, leading the song “God is Great” (by Ricky Dillard and the New G)
A glimpse of Kristy in 1983 with her Uncle Claude and her brother Phillip.
God is great –and greatly to be praised!
God is great –and greatly to be praised!
(Many intense repetitions of the line, each time in a higher key.)
KENNETH DANIEL, speaking as President of the Family Reunion: God has allowed us to come together again, for our 79th Reunion. And we thank God for those who have journeyed a long way to get here today. He gave us traveling mercies, and He allowed everyone to get here safely. Our reunion founders, as I said, I think they’re proud of what we’ve done. And I know they’ll be proud of what we will do in the future. And, when I think about the things that my grandmother instilled, about this reunion. She believed that it was the right thing to do to keep our families together. That if we can’t at any other time, we ought to be able to come together one time out of the year, and be on one accord. And to be able to embrace one another. Would she be proud of what we’ve done? Would any of our founding members be proud of what we’ve done? And I think the answer would be “Yes.”
BERTHA LANDIS, in the lines that close the 1986 film, recalling people commenting on her many children: “Is all these your children?” “Yes.” “This beats all I’ve ever seen. One, two, three, four, five”—sometimes they’d count to twenty. (Laughing.) It won’t but eleven of them. They’d count all the way to twenty. (Laughing.) “You ever whip ‘em?” “Yes, I keep a switch in the kitchen, and one in the house.” (Laughing.) “How do you feed ‘em?” He said, “I grow everything I eat, except for sugar and coffee.” “What do you do?” (He looked at me.) Everybody passed there would ask the same question. I said, “Cook and wash and iron! (Laughing.) --and work in the field.”
(Exterior shot of home place. The family gets ready to be photographed in front of Bertha’s house.)
BERTHA AND OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS, singing “Mighty Close to Heaven” (J. B. Coats)
Mighty close to Heaven, mmmmm.
When I live with Jesus all alone,
Mighty close to Heaven in my tears.
CREDITS
In Memory of
Bertha and Coy Landis
and their Children
Zenas
Doshie Winston
Wiley “W.C.
Jessie Mae Tharrington
Fleming
Robert
Truzelle
John
Tony
Funded by
The National Endowment for the Arts,
Folk and Traditional Arts Program
Special Thanks to
Priscilla Landis Daniel
and her sons Kenneth, Dennis, and Efrem
Claude Landis
and his daughter Lisa Landis Hunt
Iverson Landis, Jr.
His sisters
Karen Landis Stallings
Sharon Landis Humphrey
and “The Echoes of Heaven” from Akron, Ohio
Artreatha Tharrington Plummer and Shirley Tharrington
Daughters of Jessie Mae and the Reverend Bruce Tharrington
All other grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Bertha and Coy Landis
Darryl D. Moss, Mayor of Creedmoor, North Carolina
Synama Grove Baptist Church
Linwood Timberlake, Pastor
Rock Springs Baptist Church
The Harris, Landis, Lawrence, Byrd, and Green Family Reunion
Stock Footage from A Singing Stream provided by
The Southern Folklife Collection
of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Steven Weiss, Curator
Aaron Smithers, Assistant
Advisors
Dan Patterson
Beverly Patterson
Barry Dornfeld
Executive Producer
Will Lewis, Pinecone
Photographed and Edited by
Tom Davenport
Sound by
Barry Dornfeld
Iverson Landis
Thomas Owens
Sara Bell
Produced by
Tom Davenport
Kenneth Daniel
Dennis Daniel
Efrem Daniel
Iverson Landis
The Grandchildren of Bertha and Coy Landis
Directed by Tom Davenport
© 2015, Folkstreams & Tom Davenport
