While the Ages Roll On Transcription
WHILE THE AGES ROLL ON, TRANSCRIPTION
Transcribed by Daniel W. Patterson, with abundant help from Jeff Todd Titon and Beverly B. Patterson
00:00
ELDER CLIFFORD STANLEY, song leader (lining out words and singing, holding a small paperback hymnal, and reaching out to shake the hands of men who have approached him)
Here on this earth with the burdens of life
Tribulations and heartaches they cut like a knife.
My footsteps are weary, and no place to call home.
I'll soon be with Jesus while the ages roll on.
[film title]
While the Ages Roll On
A Memorial
(ELDER STANLEY continues singing, over shots of mines, mountain vistas, people gathering and sharing food, and finally a mountain cemetery, interspersed with the following words of explanation)
The Old Regular Baptists
Are One Of The Most
Traditional Religious Sects
In the United States
They Live In The Coal Mining
Region of Kentucky,
West Virginia and Virginia
Most Of The Preachers Work
In The Coal Mines, And Are Not
Ordained, But “Called” To Preach
Old Regular Baptists
Pay Respects To Deceased Family
Members At Annual
“Family Memorials”
This Film Was Shot In Two
Days At The “Family Memorial”
Of Preacher And Retired Miner
Raymond Smith
In Pike County, Kentucky
This Memorial Weekend
Coincides With A Tense Period
In The United Mine Workers Strike
Against Pittston Coal
Company
While the ages roll on, while the ages roll on,
I'll soon be with Jesus around the white throne,
My head on His breast, His arms about me,
While the ages roll on by the beautiful sea.
My Mother and Daddy are up there I know.
The memory that haunts me and makes my heart glow,
One thought that cheers me as I carry on
We'll soon be with Jesus while the ages roll on.
02:03
Saturday Night At The
Smith Home
ELDER RAYMOND SMITH (in a preaching chant to people in his home as he shakes hands with this man and that, many responding throughout with words of agreement): Oh, God have mercy on us. That’s what we need. It is, praise the Lord. Yes, yes, sir. I want to tell you the truth today, that Jesus is alive and alive forevermore. And He come here on this earth, and was crucified, and rose on the third day and appointed morning. When He rose from that tomb—Oh, listen, now let me back up a little. When they nailed Him to the cross, and He let the ghost, and He died. And the mountain’s where the rocks split for the Most High and, and Son. And that moon is going to turn to blood, and the stars are going to fall. Jesus is going to come. Yes, sir; Jesus is real. I say He is, and that He’ll approach, a cloud in glory with ten thousand of His angels, and there is now a glorious land, a country where people with mercy go. (pauses, exhausted, and concludes) But there’s only one. For ones who believe in God, thou shalt have no other god before me. So now may God bless every, each and every one of you is my humble prayer.
03.33
(over shots of Raymond Smith wiping his brow and face, two men begin singing)
When this life on the earth is ended,
And my troubles and trials are o’er
I know we will go to a country
Where no tears ever come any more.
04:02
ELDER SMITH (telling that his calling to be a preacher came in a dream): I can see it right now. This ship came up to me. I was standing on the seashore, alone. This captain said to me, he said, “Raymond, you come and get in this ship. There’s people down yonder that’s got to hear you preach.” So I got in. I was standing in that ship, on the deck of it, honey, with both hands swinging high, and preaching just as hard as I could preach.
ELDER STANLEY: Tomorrow--when we come out tomorrow to the little memorial--I know some of us’ll be going home, and I know it’d tickle Brother Raymond to death if we’d just get on the phone and call somebody, Brother Lacy, to have them come around and be with us tomorrow. Brother Raymond, you got anything?
ELDER SMITH: No, I don’t have anything. Want to thank each and every one that’s made a trip here to be with us. We’re glad you come. Now if anybody wants to eat, you got something to eat in there. You want something to drink, you don’t need nothing. . . (group breaks into conversations)
05:05
(The camera pans down the tangled branches of a tree, and singers begin the hymn “Jerusalem, my Happy Home” with a different leader lining it out; the camera offers shots of people arriving for the morning service and a caption appears.)
Sunday Morning
Arriving At The Family Memorial
Jerusalem, my happy home,
O how I long for thee!
When will my sorrows have an end,
The joys when shall I see?
The walls are all of precious stone . . .
06:39
ELDER STANLEY: It’s time now. One more year has rolled around and this little family memorial. We was here last night, and we had an awful good meeting. The Lord blest us well last night. We ought to be the most thankfullest people in the world. And you know that I said last year when we was gathered out here that they would probably be some more names added to the list. And I wasn’t wrong about that. There’ve been three more added to this little list, and one of them is this, a new name, Brother Raymond, that was added just a few moments ago. This is the Memorial Meeting of Brother Raymond Smith, and his family—his first wife Clustena; father Tom, mother Gracie; brothers Virgil, Edgar, and Cullen. He had two more brothers this year, Evirt and Verlin. Sister Maudie’s family: her husband Ersel Williamson; her father Emzy Robinette, mother Louisa Robinette; brother Estel, and a sister Gracie Frances. And another brother, I always called him S. Robinette, and another one just a few hours ago, Frank Robinette.
(Over picture captioned Maudie Smith, Raymond’s Wife )
SISTER MAUDIE SMITH: We know he’s got a better home to go to. And there won’t be no sickness and stuff there.
Maudie’s Brother Died Earlier
That Morning
That’s one consolation you can have, you know—that he won’t have to be sick no more, so…
(Scene shifts to another place in the Smiths’ yard where another man is preaching)
08:35
ELDER ARNOLD CLEVENGER: I want to say I believe in a God this morning that had the same power to take up the dust of the ground right there and make the first man here upon this earth where these bodies lay. He’s got the same power today that He had then, Brother Raymond. I want to say He can take on that dust this morning, and He can make a new body. Brothers and sisters and friends this morning, that He said, “The way is straight, but few be that find it.” Brother, it’s a straight road this morning on this earth to a never-ending eternity. I’m thankful, Brother Raymond, for to be here. But I’m ‘bout wore out. I do-- I feel, Brother Raymond, that my time is drawing nigh. Oh, this morning, as I’ve always said, love one another this morning. Because I feel, Brother, that I was born with a love a long time ago for this whole family here. (sitting down) Bless you!
09:51
(scene shifts to a kitchen where Maudie and others are preparing food)
Raymond’s Daughter Birdie
ROBERTA SMITH COLEMAN: When I left the church yesterday, I went home to cook stuffed peppers, corn on the cob, fresh green beans, cole slaw, banana pudding.
SISTER SMITH (slicing meat): I was raised here. I was born and raised here, my family was, just like Raymond’s family was just about raised here on Big Creek..
ANOTHER VOICE: All of us were.
A THIRD VOICE: Every one of them.
SISTER SMITH: And I was from Hardy, which used to be the coal camp. And I’m above that, thank goodness. And on above that—get this one--Mud Lick. (laughs) Mud Lick. That’s where I went to school, Mud Lick School.
SECOND VOICE: Spelled the same way it sounds.
SISTER SMITH: And I lived at Turkey Toe.
CHILD’S VOICE: Turkey Toe.
SISTER SMITH: And when you’ve been born and raised here, it’s home. Yeah, and you’re a part of these mountains. My first husband’s family left for work, you know. They was in the coal mines here, and they left to go to the automobile factory. And plain. And they called us Hillbillies. Go to these big cities, and we’re called things. And we’re laughed at over our talk, our language, you know. Because we’re plain, we’re plain people. We’re not dumb people, we’re just plain Southern people.
(scene shifts to dinner on the ground—with the sound of many people talking as they fill their plates with picnic food and disperse to find seats and eat)
11:52
ELDER STANLEY, chatting as he eats: They let this thing go and you lose, you lose your union, you’re going to be working as you did back in the Hundred Days, ’33, and it’ll be for $3.35 an hour. Be a lot worse than what it is now.
ELDER LACY WALTERS: I work in the coal mines. We’re not on strike, but we been pulled out, you know, with pickets. We’re not union either.
(fragments of other conversations)
ELDER VIRGIL HESS: Don’t let them make excuses. They ain’t going to boil a cup of coffee till they join a union.
ANOTHER MAN, responding: It’s free for them. You preach free salvation, you’ll obey that gospel. Union’s just as free as that gospel is if the men’ll just wake up and open their eyes up and get to business and quit going out there working. Wait till they’re gone, boys, and you’ll eat leaves right there. I told a man the other day against the union, I said, “Brother, let me tell you something, I’d pick six of those leaves and eat them. I don’t work but if I did, I’d pick six of those leaves and boil ‘em down and eat ‘em before I’d scab.”
12:59
ELDER SMITH: In this area—throughout Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia—has always been a laboring bunch of people—willing people, you know, to work for what they got. But they was a people that believed in a time to start and a time to quit, you know. That’s what brought our union around. They was working twelve and fourteen hours a day, sixteen hours a day.
Raymond’s Son Bud
Coal Miner
BUD SMITH: The coal business back when it was good—we had what they called a boom here back in ‘73 and ’74—and coal went outrageously high, and it jacked the prices up. The cost of living went sky high. Well, then work dropped off, but the prices stayed the same. So, it made it hard, even for a man with steady employment to make ends meet, and put anything back toward his children’s education, or anything like that, you know.
ELDER STANLEY (laughing as he eats): Too much work in ‘em.
13:52
FILMMAKER: You work in the coal mine also?
ELDER STANLEY: Yeah. Yeah. Run a roof bolter. Pin top.
FILMMAKER: What does that do?
[ANOTHER VOICE]: To keep it from falling.
ELDER STANLEY: Pin the rock up. To keep it from falling in on them.
SISTER SMITH: When a person can get a chance to leave that kind of work and get a better place, you know, more paying--then it didn’t pay like it does now either—but they would leave. Many of them left. But many of them’s come back now.
MINER: I retired from the Eastern Coal Company—that’s over here at Stone.
WOMAN’S VOICE: Now Pittston.
MINER: It’s Pittston Coal Company now. I didn’t want to work in the mines, you know. When I was young, I thought mechanicking would be the best. I tried that. I didn’t really like that. And I went to Detroit and worked for Chrysler Corporation and didn’t like that. So I just come back home and went to the mines. Everything then mostly, other than that, was minimum wage, you know--which you can’t live on, you know. It’s bad for the younger generation, you know.
Raymond’s son Chris
FILMMAKER: Not going to be a miner, hunh?
CHRIS SMITH: No. Daddy told me not to, and I ain’t going to. He got his—he got blew up in the mines. That’s the reason why his hand’s like that. Got blew up in the mines. My sister’s husband got killed in the mines, and her other husband got hurt. He ain’t working no more. Big rock fell on him. That’s all it is around here, falling rocks and everything else.
15:39
FILMMAKER: What does your Daddy do?
TEENAGER: He’s a miner. Laid off right now.
ANOTHER TEENAGER: Same here. I’m his brother. I don’t like to hear of rock falls. But if he gets to go to work that’s up to him. If he’s going to spend his life on that, I ain’t going to though, and I ain’t going to be no miner. No future in it.
16:07
(a preaching section with shots of more men preaching in several different places, both inside the house in the evening and outside in the yard in the morning)
ELDER WALTERS: I believe the Lord talks to a man. I’m here to tell you this evening, Brother Clifford, the Lord talks to me every day somewhere. Listen to me, I may be down in the coal mines. Most of the time I’m a long ways away from the . . .
ELDER TOMMY KIDD: Seems like the young people is on my mind this morning. Oh, Brother Raymond. Oh, the Bible said like this. I ask, do you believe like this . . .
ELDER WALTERS: . . . I promised the Lord, about nine years ago, up on the mountainside, up in the hill at Pigeon Roost. I prayed a prayer that morning, Brother Clifford. I stole away from everyone else.
ELDER KIDD: Are you ready to live again? If God was to come in the eastern sky today, Brother Raymond, could you say, “Come, welcome Death?”
ELDER WALTERS: Honey, listen to me. I abide to them, Brother Raymond. It’s on the outside. Oh, it’s mine and your duty. The Lord put us here for this purpose.
MAN RESPONDING: Sure did!
17:06
ELDER HESS: ‘bout sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen years ago, I believe I got that hope right down in my soul. Brother, get you a song and start singing there. I don’t want to take up people’s time, (continues to preach, walking about, most of his words getting lost when the singer starts lining out and leading the congregation):
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear. . .
18:42
(scene shift from the singing to what follows the religious service. Kids gather near a food truck selling ice cream and attracting customers by playing a recording of “My Darling Clementine”)
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine,
You are lost, you’re gone forever.
Dreadful sorry, Clementine—
So sorry, Clementine,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
(the music morphs into “Git Along Little Dogies”)
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies.
It's your misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies.
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.
As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure,
I saw a cowpuncher come riding along.
His hat was throwed back, and his spurs was a-jinglin'.
As he approached me, he was singin' this song:
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies
It's your misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies.
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.
(the ice cream truck disappears down the road)
ELDER STANLEY] Lord, I like ice cream. I’m sure lucky I can get it.
(the camera shifts to a close-up on Bud Smith)
19:49
BUD SMITH: Around here your children are your most important asset. I mean, what you make of them is--is what you leave in this world. I mean, when all is said and done, you may only find home or something while you’re here, but it’s only yours so long as you’re here, and when you leave, it’s somebody else’s. That child remains yours, and its children remain your grandchildren. They’re your legacy.
Sunday
After The Memorial Service
20:17
(Elder Smith feeds his hound dog from a bucket, pets it, and walks to a small out-building where he feeds, pets, and talks to a caged raccoon)
ELDER SMITH: Come out, Jojo. Hurry up, Buddy. Come on. Come on. Come on.. (whispers to the raccoon as he pets it and pours some food for it and chuckles) What do you want? What do you want? Yeah, eat it up, boy. Yeah, you’re something, ain’t you! He likes that dog food, don’t you, Jo? Yeah, he does.
After the spiritual things is over, they begin to talk about, you might say, natural things, you know, such as coon hunting. That’s part of my life. I mean deep down in me that’s—I love that. I enjoy it. I get peace, satisfaction out of it.
(moves on to another pen to feed several other hunting dogs)
This hunting in this part of the country is a great sport. Even the very richest-up people, those that has their coon dog, pay anywhere from five thousand up to seventy-five hundred for one dog. And it’s a nice thing, you know. It’s honest and no wrong about it—until you get into that World Hunting. Now when you get into that, each one puts up so much money, you know, that his dog is going win the Hunt. So, if he don’t win the Hunt, you got to pay. So, kinda like betting.
(Elder Smith laughs, and the camera shifts to a single hunting dog on a long leash. Elder Smith leads the way up toward the dog)
Now up here, that is the dog of all dogs. And I can prove it in the mountains. Yeah, I can prove that right out there on the mountain. Did you see that?—two toes off the inside of the right foot there. She’s got two toes. How come that? We took her hunting in this area where there was a trap in the fall, and she got in a trap. She stayed there one month, and them toes rotted off. And I‘s in there a month later, and the other two dogs treed. We’d done give up ever seeing her anymore, never finding her again. When these other two dogs treed, in a few minutes a third dog come in on the tree. And when we got there, it was her. And she was so poor, so thin, you could almost see through her. She was on that wood just like this (raising both arms high) stretched on that tree. One more dog there!
23:58
SISTER SMITH: It’s a peaceful life—some people think it’s hard to live, but really it’s not. And it’s a good way. And when we leave here, then we can live again, our real life. Don’t have to worry, heartaches like I’ve had this week, you know—troubles. Won’t have that then.
24:10
BUD SMITH: All my life I’ve been a wanderer. I drift from here to there. But I’d always come home, especially in the springtime. I tend to think of the spring as a time of new birth, you know, and when the trees go to budding out, I always want to come home. I can make it to the other seasons, but in the spring I’ve always got to come home. This is home, and I want to live here and die here. It’s as simple as that. There’s no place like it.
(the camera shifts to scenes of the mountains, the mines, over voices singing the last two lines from stanza three and the first two of stanza four of the hymn “When I can read my title clear”)
May I but safely reach my home:
My God, my heaven, my all.
There shall I bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
ELDER SMITH, rising and giving his song book to Elder Stanley: Thank God for this singing. Thank you, Lord. And you’re going to need your songbook.
ELDER SMITH, speaking quietly in an interview: All my life, even when I was a kid growing up, small, say eight, ten, twelve years old, I felt, I could feel God’s love dwelling in me. I could feel that God had a purpose in me, you know. Which God did have a purpose in me, you know. And later on in years I felt, I felt that call.
(sudden shift to Elder Raymond preaching inside his home)
Well, he says, “You go and open your mouth”—I’ve had people tell me, “Raymond, you have the biggest mouth for a little fellow I ever seen.” Ah, yes. Yes, sir! I want to tell you gentlemen. Listen, I feel good, Brother Lloyd. Listen, I want you to understand, Brother, that I believe in an all-wise God. I believe in a God.
(scene shifts back to the interview with Elder Smith talking quietly)
They can kill me. They can crucify me. They can do whatever they want to or what they might think they can do, but the Lord’s going to take care of me till I’ll fulfill my mission. And when I fulfill my mission, I feel the Lord’s going to call me home. My work will be finished. Yeah.
(CREDITS role while ELDER STANLEY sings a portion of “Family Reunion,” a song written by Rusty Gabbard and William Holt)
Come one, come all, to the family reunion.
It might be the last time we’ll meet.
Mother is sick, she’s tired and weary.
She can’t hardly go another mile.
She loves her children and wants them near her
Once more, so Mother can see them smile. . . .
[CREDITS]
Producer, Director, Editor
Kevin Balling
Cameras
T. Eric Albright
Rich Keen
Kent Graham
Kevin Balling
Audio
Lee Daniels
Production Assistant
Kent Graham
Engineer
Larry Cornelison
Production Stills
Howard Dorgan
Rich Keen
Thanks
The Smith Family
Jane Robinson
Darvin Marshall
Joe Murphy
Appalshop
Dean Williams
The Lonesome Dove Church
Thanks
Janice Lilly
Gannell Marshall
Charles Porterfield
Cata
Ming Land
Alice Lloyd College
Library of Congress
Funding
The Kaltenborn Foundation
Appalachian State University
Department of Communication
University Research Council
College of Fine and Applied Arts
Berea College
Funding
The Southeast Media Fellowship Program
Jointly Supported by The North Carolina Arts Council
and The National Endowment For The Arts
Executive Producer
Howard Dorgan
Tin Roof
MCMXC
