Eulogy as given by Edward McCurry for
Wallace’s funeral
May 19, 2007
It is an honor to say a few words
this morning about a great man, James Wallace Lewis. We all know and love The Lewis
Family, but it was Wallace that was the first to start to play and sing. Wallace is really
responsible for formation of The Lewis Family as we know them. Wallace started playing the
guitar at the age of 12 to pass the time while recovering from an illness. Pop had some
old instruments around and Mom who also played a guitar would help teach him. Miggie says
“The first song he picked out on the guitar was Death Will Never
Knock on Heaven.” I have heard Pop say many times when he would introduce
Wallace on stage, “Here is the one who first started playing and singing.”
Wallace was instrumental in forming The Lewis Brothers. Their first playing and singing
was at such things as ice cream parties and socials with Wallace, Esley, Talmadge and
Little Roy as The Lewis Brothers.
The Lewis Brothers became The Lewis
Family when Pop and the girls joined the group. Wallace would encourage them and worked
with Talmadge and Little Roy to play different instruments. Wallace was the one who kept
the roadmap in hand and got the family to their show date for many years knowing every
turn to make, what time to leave and how far it was to the next show date. He wore out
many road maps over the years. And while we are speaking of road maps, Wallace knew how to
read another road map, his Bible, and one of his most requested songs recorded in 1970
described that. Wallace sang “I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap.” This
is so fitting for him because he knew how to read the Bible and followed it as his roadmap
to Heaven.
Wallace knew where all the fuel stops
and eating places were. Back when they did not have a coffee maker on the bus, they would
carry two thermoses to get coffee at fuel stops. Wallace would go in to get the coffee
even though he did not drink coffee. Wallace was always the one to go in and pay for the
fuel and get the coffee. Sometime it would take a little more time than usual and when he
would come back to the bus he would say that they had to cook the coffee.
Wallace would sit there in his front
bus seat watch the road for most of the night before going to bed. Wallace played a very important part on stage by
leading many songs and playing rhythm guitar. For many years when The Lewis Family would
go on stage, Wallace would do all their MC work announcing the next song and keep the show
moving. For 45 years he stood right there on the right side of the stage, as we would face
it, singing lead in some songs and playing rhythm guitar. In 1995 he had to retire from
the road due to health. Just a couple of weeks ago I was at a Lewis Family concert and
Little Roy said “Wallace stood right here beside me for 45 years, and I still miss
him.” We all still miss Wallace on that stage.
Wallace gained the respect of many
great musicians for his rhythm guitar work. Through the years he received numerous awards
for his playing. As a member of The Lewis Family, he was inducted into The Georgia Music
Hall of Fame, The Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and The International Bluegrass Hall of
Honor. Wallace always had great respect for other musicians and enjoyed a wide variety of
music as his extensive record collection indicates.
Wallace was the quiet one of the
bunch. Going down the road he would set there and listen to all the chatter that went on
with some kind of junk going on most of the time on the bus and once in a while he would
chime in with something witty. You had to listen close because he didn’t say it but
once.
I rode with the family one time to Hugo,
OK. I was really hot that day and we had been out in the heat all day at a festival. When
we were leaving the little town, Wallace just come out of the blue with “Here’s where we seen all those elephants in
the street.” I just turned and looked
at Wallace and thought “Yeah right, we are in the middle of Oklahoma, in the middle
of no where and all those elephants in the street. I
don’t think so.” I thought that he had gotten overheated and was not thinking
right. As it turned out, a year or so before, elephants from a circus based in that town
had gotten out of their fence and gotten in the street and were still there when The Lewis
Family passed by. By this time the whole family was laughing.
At their concerts years ago they sold
souvenir ash trays. Little Roy said “We gave 13 cents each for them and sold them for
50 cents.” Someone at one concert picked
up one and just walked off with it. Wallace went chasing them through the crowd, caught up
with them and told them that the ash tray was 50 cents. He came back with the money.
Most of all on the road Wallace
enjoyed seeing his friends, the people he had seen year after year at the concerts. It
makes Wallace’s day to get out of the bus and spend time talking with his friends.
Wallace enjoyed being at home with
his family. He was always there for them. He enjoyed his extensive record collection and
working in his yard. He spent a lot of his time at home keeping his yard neat. And no
matter what, Wallace was always ready for his favorite dessert, Ice Cream. One time,
it’s been more than 30 years ago, The Lewis Family stopped at a place in Memphis for
some ice cream. Now when you are in a bus you have to park where you can and it may not be
right at the place you are going in. So after parking across the street from the ice
cream, Wallace went to get everyone on the bus a cone of ice cream. It was a hot summer
day in Memphis and when Wallace came out with the ice cream he had to wait to get back
across the busy street. By the time he got back to the bus the ice cream was melting and
running down his arms and dripping off his elbows. Wallace got his ice cream though.
Now for the more serious side.
Wallace was a song writer. He wrote many of the songs The Lewis Family sang especially in
their Starday recordings. The Oak Ridge Boys even recorded one of his songs. Wallace has a
message in each of his songs. I think if he
were here he would probably want to say to us some of the words from his songs. I want you
to listen to just a few words from some of Wallace’s songs. Imagine you are hearing
Wallace speak.
There is a song he wrote called A Beautiful
City and he says “I know I am bound for that beautiful city where I can feel
His presence more clear. And when I get there
I will never more roam. I am longing to live
in that bright city.”
The song titled I’m Not
Alone he says “I’m not alone, with Jesus I’m going home.”
In the song Nearer Home
these words, “I am nearing the shore, He will guide me safely to the other side.
Nearer to the other shore where we will sing forever more, for the day of judgment is
surely at hand, all of the shore will be past when we reach that home at last, and the
Savior we will meet Him in that land.”
And then there’s the song There’s
Never An Unguarded Moment we find these words, “As you travel down this road
of sorrow there’s one who is watching above, it’s our Lord our Maker in Heaven
watching on the road we trod. There’s never an unguarded moment between life and
death. There’s never an unguarded moment,
you are watched by the eyes of God.” For those days, weeks, and years that Wallace
lay there in the bed, I know Betty Jean and his family took excellent care of him. Betty
Jean, you are to be commended for all you have done. We will never know all you have done
and how difficult it was. Travis, Keith and Karen you have been there too and saw he was
cared for, but even through all that still there was never an unguarded moment in which
Wallace was not watched by the eyes of God.
Although there are many songs that
Wallace wrote, he has been credited with writing or arranging more than 80 songs, the last
I want to use is the one you just heard him sing, In Heaven, this is beautiful, it’s
Wallace’s words. “But the sweetest
of it all I will be in Heaven I know. Soon my life will be over and my eyes will close in
death when my friends will gather around me to see my peace
and rest, pretty flowers, pretty roses will cover me I know, but the sweetest of it
all, I will be in Heaven I know. In Heaven I know, in Heaven I know, with all my loved
ones who have gone on before, so don’t weep, don’t cry, for my life will then
begin, with Jesus, my great Redeemer and all my friends.” What more could you want
today than these words from Wallace?
You know, Wallace knew exactly what
he was talking about. He is in Heaven today, out of that bed, walking and talking and
singing his songs. His new life has begun, with Jesus his Savior, with Pop, Mom and Mosley
and his friends who have gone before.
The last time I saw Wallace was a few
weeks ago. I would punch at him to get his attention and talk to him. When we got ready to
leave, I said, “bye bye Wallace, bye bye Wallace.”
After a couple of times, Wallace said rather loud, “Bye Bye.”
Well, let me say one more time, Bye
Bye for now Wallace, you have achieved that sweetest goal, in Heaven I know. Now by the
grace of our good Lord and Savior, we will see you in there.
