And We Thought THOSE Three Were Interesting
We all know about Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart and Mickey Gilley. But what about "The Chiller"?
[Jerry Lee] may have mellowed with age, but he's still billed as "The Killer" and you never know if the over-the-top ego and eccentricities will be brought down from the attic. Even in Ferriday.
Which brings us to his younger sister -- "The Chiller" -- Frankie Jean Lewis Terrell.
Most days you'll find her at the old Lewis place, which she operates as the Lewis Family Museum. She's apt to be next door at her other operation: the Pik-Quick Drive Thru beer and liquor store....
At 2 p.m. on a spring Monday, trade is car-a-minute brisk. The proprietor, about 5-feet-5 in hiking shoes, is at the check-out end of the business. Her curly red hair has a poodle cut. Now and again, you can see her striking resemblance to Jerry Lee.When she barks a question, request or a price above the noise of engines, it's direct. This keeps her two helpers dodging around, pulling cold cans and pint flasks. They call her Miss Frankie.
One's the massive guy named Amos Montgomery. The other -- also in his 20s, also in very rumpled clothes -- is raffish and in need of a shave. He looks familiar.
"This here is Daryle Ensminger," she says. "He's family, up visiting. His daddy's a preacher in Baton Rouge."
That explains much. The Lewis clan is intermarried with Swaggarts and Gilleys; televangelist Jimmy Lee Swaggart and Mickey Gilley -- the "Urban Cowboy" of the 1980s -- are first cousins with Jerry Lee and with each other.
A comment about Ensminger's resemblance draws chuckles.
"Mickey makes no damn sense," Frankie says. "I'm ashamed of Mickey hiring people to make fun of his cousins."
That's a reference to a bit Gilley has done in nightclub shows that pokes fun at Swaggart (who a few years ago got in hot water for consorting with a prostitute) and at ever-rowdy Jerry Lee.
"Jimmy and Jerry are dedicated. I don't know why, but Mickey's so arrogant." Pause. "But he was real good to my mama. They were so close."
Frankie says Mickey's known in the family as Puss-Gut: "We passed the nickname down from his father, Arthur Gilley, who was called that. I don't know why."
Swaggart gets off easy at the Pik-Quick.
Frankie: "He has a slush puppy with no alcohol in it. I have a margarita every day. You see, you can't blackmail a Lewis: We tell all and we tell the truth."...
A true Lewis, middle ball-of-fire 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, who works at a local hospital, raised eight kids.
Musical fame? De-clined. "They made me sing Little Richard songs which I don't approve of. I don't copy anybody. I tore up the check and the Decca contract and that was that. They said I was crazy. Crazy and glad for it."
No squandered millions here: "I've got a hole in my pants, and I'm wearing a shirt from the mission store. I make 7 cents off a dollar, and drawed $200 out of this store in 30-something years. I work 14 hours a day. I pay $1,800 in property tax. Pay taxes and die: Those are two things you're sure to do.
"I worked since I was 5 to keep this house up. I don't beg for money. I ask once for a donation. If they don't donate, fine. I make 'em a cup of coffee and say, `Goodbye.' "
A Lewis to the bone: "I can't imagine being reincarnated and not being me."
Later: "I'm going to invent hard liquor in squirt guns."
And she's ever protective of the brother she hasn't seen in two decades: "They named a damn cow trail after Jerry in a white neighborhood. Our roots are in the black neighborhood. Our white people couldn't play no rock 'n' roll. ...
"The town can't stand us. They'll lie to you. But anytime someone lies on a Lewis, something bad happens to 'em."
When a patrol car comes through Pik-Quick Drive Thru, she points at it and orders, "Take their picture!"
The officer looks wearily at the camera, as though he's been through this before....
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