(Screenshots from movie clips)
Every so often someone on WordPress shares a post that propels me back into my lazy childhood days in the Mississippi Delta. This week, Frizztext shared some music through his post, which magically transported me back to the dining room of my childhood home.( Do You Remember Me)
Standing to the right of my father’s chair was short colorful Jenny, the lady who presided over our kitchen. After Daddy blessed the food, we witnessed meek Jenny slowly transform as she sang the gospel song, I Shall Not Be Moved.
With an uneasy-yet-steady a capella beginning, she found strength and conviction with each line of the song. Reaching crescendo with the chorus, she rocked back and forth like a human metronome – almost trance-like with a pendulum’s motion. My eyes were surely wide with childlike wonder every time I witnessed her transformation!
Jenny sang that song in Elia Kazan’s 1956 controversial movie, Babydoll. Starring Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach and Karl Malden, the Tennessee Williams movie was filmed in my sleepy little hometown of Benoit, Mississippi.
Although my memories of her are now clouded, Jenny’s essence will forever be branded in my memory, especially when I hear this song.
I shall not, I shall not be moved;
I shall not, I shall not be moved;
Like a tree that’s planted by the water,
I shall not be moved.
I’m on my way to glory,
I shall not be moved,
On my way to glory,
I shall not be moved..
Like a tree that’s planted by the water…
I shall not be moved
Oh, yeah, I shall not be,
I shall not, i shall not be moved,
Like a tree that’s planted by the water
I shall not be moved…
Benoit, Mississippi1956
While wading through numerous YouTube clips of Babydoll, there at 2:26 was my dear Jenny! Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to the tiny town of Benoit, Mississippi and to Jenny!
History about this song can be found HERE.
Thanks, Frizztext, for your post that triggered this memory!
The WordPress Daily Prompt asked us to use a line from a favorite movie, write a post and use the line as the title. Having spent this past week in loving tribute to Jenny, I will close with this quote from the movie: “Baby Doll: Well, let’s go in now. We got nothing to do but wait for tomorrow and see if we’re remembered or forgotten. “
Dear Jenny! You will forever be remembered.
z
Zeebra Designs & Destinations 
How lucky to find Jenny after all these years. She’s precious. 🙂
seeing her materialize in that clip was like seeing a ghost! what an amazing surreal moment that was! z
Wow how did she get in the movie? Must have been pretty wild to grow up in the south during those days!
of course looking back, we see it from a different perspective. that was the only life that we knew, so it was ‘normal.’ i often say that life here in ecuador reminds me of how life was when i was growing up… only we didn’t have howler monkeys or palm trees!
I like your Mississippi stories so much, Lisa!
thank you so much.. there’s so much material to share; i’m extremely lucky to have lived such a full and rewarding life! z
greetings again – thanks for your comment there, Lisa:
and soon more about cotton fields …
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I’ve set a link to you at
j for Jenny …
Thank you for a profound tribute to a women who gave so much to our world…
you are so very welcome! i am so lucky to have had so many amazing people touch my life. slowly those stories will continue to trickle out! z
What a fascinating story! Curious about how she got into the movies too 🙂
the movie was filmed in my little hometown, and i think that Elia Kazan heard her sing the song and wanted her to play that role. i’ve asked my oldest sister to reach back in her memory bank and retrieve a bit more trivia about jenny.
gracias! z
Lisa – That’s really something. Wonderful post about your Jenny and her singing role in Baby Doll. That was quite the controversial film when it came out.
oh yes.. scandalous! as i watched the various excerpts, i pondered how our world’s morals have gone to the trash.. a movie like Babydoll once pushed the moral limits yet now it barely registers…
what a wonderful story and memory..
thanks; when i heard that song, the window opened like a direct link! z
How amazing and how wonderful to be able to see her as many times as you wish. My Jenny was a Janey. She didn’t sing but I loved sitting on her lap and being hugged.
yes, i can thank frizztext for that prompt that led me to jenny captured there in the short video summary of the movie! i’m glad that you had a Janey and her unconditional love! z
Now that is what I call a blessing.. how wonderful for you to actually see her again, hear her voice.. This just gladdened my heart for you!!
Thank you! Probably 40 years or more have passed since I heard her voice, but it was as if it were yesterday.
What an intriguing life you have lived! Thanks for sharing the memories.
thank you as well. yes, i am so lucky to have experienced so much, and there seems to be no end to new ones!
Wow, amazing that you came across this and re-lived some wonderful memories. Jenny seemed like a beautiful person with a deep soul, lucky for your family that Jenny was in your lives.
si, and to think that i have frizztext to thank for embarking me on this journey, all because of a song! z
What a wonderful story Lisa. Thank you for sharing it. 🙂
thanks so much. when i open my heart to old memories, they seem eager to to be introduced to the world!
Love it! 🙂
Oh, Lisa, your stories from our childhood always touch me and take me back but this one, oh, oh, made me cry at the office! I was buzzed to answer a phone call and had to tell the receptionist I couldn’t talk right then! Before I read your post and saw you had the name Jenny on it, I immediately teared up. Funny, this happened about 3 years ago: Pat and I were riding down the levee and we had had a few cold ones when all of a sudden, Pat breaks out in song: I shall not be moved, clapping her hands with the chorus. I laughed and asked where that came from and she said she suddenly remembered Jenny, who worked for your family and every Thanksgiving Charlie Boy had her sing that song. She said Jenny was very bashful and Charlie Boy egged her on until she started out singing quietly and ended like a chorus girl. Pat sang that song over and over that afternoon, with me chiming in inbetween giggles. Thank you so much for the memories; they are bittersweet in that they are from such a wonderful time in our childhood and that I MISS THOSE SIMPLE TIMES SOOOOO MUCH!!
amiga
i suspected that you’d comment on this one, and i am not surprised that this post made you tearful. i predicted that it would do that to you and to pat and to kate, who all subscribe. karen subscribes too (hey karen!) though she never knew jenny and might never have heard ‘of’ jenny, but she has now! it makes me realize there is so much more to share with her, as she embraces all tidbits that i share with her.
when i ‘stumbled’ upon jenny in that clip, i all but started trembling – there she was, when moments before i was wondering how in the world i would find anything suitable to illustrate the story. i was surprised that her name wasn’t in any of the credits, not even listed under the music.
of course now i want to know more about her, and the ones who knew most are now gone. i am hopeful that kate and helen and pat will remember more than baby sister!
A remarkable post, a lovely combination of the personal and the public… 🙂
thank you so much! it’s funny how some stories present themselves with no warning, and this one did, thanks to frizztext!
z
Oh Lisa, that Mississippi heritage, with its strife and its gospel and blues, the fields, the oaks, the sun. It’s so rich! Iknow you have benefited from all of it. I’m glad frizztext’s post led you to this one. Amazing. And for a weird 6 degrees of separation, my father worked with Kazan’s brother – he was a research chemist – and once or twice my father had dinner with the brother and Elia, but it must have been in the 60’s. Crazy, huh?
you are so right. i read an interview late last night about elia kazan, and he was asked how he stumbled upon jenny. he said that he was having dinner at my father’s home, and jenny sang for them. he wrote the part for jenny.
yes, it’s a small world.
Too much!!
Z…I believe that the goodness of souls continue to radiate their goodness by those who remember them and share that life now passed. Jenny’s goodness continues to radiate out into the world…now our world…through your lovely words about her to all of us. Ripples in the pond…thank you. R.
That’s a great concept, and I will gladly keep Jenny’s sweet spirit alive and well! Yes, the ripple effect is a great one! z
What a fascinating story Lisa. I didn’t know you came from the Mississippi Delta area. In this case you really needed to show not tell how marvelous for us that you found the film clip with Jenny singing.
Pooh that she didn’t get any credits! I hope she was paid?
hey dear rosie!
si, i grew up on a cotton farm near the mississippi river. every so often i tell people that i think my life in mississippi prepared me for costa rica, and my life in costa rica prepared me for ecuador! life in both of these countries reminds me of those slower times when i was growing up.
now i sometimes wonder what ecuador is preparing me for!
Ah – look at this. Another example of blog-serendipity. I suspect your feeling when you found Jenny wasn’t so different from my feeling when I re-found Earl Jones and his angel in that cemetery.
“We Shall Not be Moved” was a great part of my youth, too, although the version by The Seekers was the one which became familiar. You can see it here , embedded into a very, very early post. Ironically, it involves the Mississippi River! And it’s one that could be rewritten and reposted, too. 😉
i suspected that you would identify with this one! the internet is really sluggish today, so i will load the page but it will probably not play until most of the town goes to sleep tonight! such are the problems of living in paradise! z
Great post!
thanks, amiga.. it’s a great memory!
z
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Hey Sis, I’ve been without internet and just now am reading this. I soooooo remember Jenny!! I can see her right now with her bashful smile everytime Daddy asked her to sing. It was like a ritual anytime we had company or it was a holiday. Don’t remember when Jenny left our lives, but I just remember how much I loved to hear her sing. She was such a tiny thing, and so shy. I have looked for that song and several others. So glad to see you found it. It didn’t sound near as good as it did when Jenny sany it, but at least it gave me all the words. Don’t think I had them all down correctly, just made up some when I couldn’t remember. The picture of her is exactly as I remember her. Other dear ones that I remember are Sally, Sam, Boll Weevil, John Wesley, Sarah and Anderson, Bip and Alena, Ms Ruthie and Gip, and I’m sure I have forgotten a few other black folks that brought fond memories to me. To this day, Dot Evans, Ms Ruthie’s daughter, and I are like sisters. I even went to church with her last Sunday at the black church in Bolivar. I could trust her with my life, we’ll be close forever. Better go Sis. Steve and I plan to be out of here in less than a week. Been thinking about your advice a lot lately. We are sooo anxious to leave, but it seems there is always a setback of some sort. Pray for us. We hope to be headed west next weekend. Love you bunches and am sooo proud of you!!
it is great to hear from you, and i wasn’t going to nag you and ask if your plans were still on schedule! great!!!! i think i am looking forward to your new experiences as much or more than you— maybe because i have some inside info on how great it feels to learn about new areas!
love,
‘baby’ sister
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thanks! z
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