Carl Wells Books

Tammy was seventeen years of age in Tammy Out of Time, which was published in 1948. In the third and final book in the series, Tammy in Rome, the action takes place in 1964. She is still specifically age 17. She recognizes herself that she is not simply a creature of her own era.

Near the end of Tammy Out of Time, we read, ‘”Beyond time,” Tammy repeated. “I reckon I been living outside of time all my born days. Not just account of having no clocks to mark its passing but because–” She paused, trying to find the words.’
‘”Because,” Miss Renie said all at once, “because you have been concerned with the fundamentals of living, the universals.”‘ (p. 234)

The fundamentals of living, the universals, are God’s truth as revealed in the Bible. Tammy and her grandfather Dinwoodie may be poor, financially, but they are rich in what is most important–understanding that life can best be lived by believing God and living the way He wants us to live.

Tammy’s purity, then, is not an accident. It is a result of how she was raised, and of the fact that she has internalized that teaching, and has believed God’s truth as revealed in the Bible. In the second book we read that she had up to that point never been in a church building! But under the tutelage of her grandfather (and of her grandmother until she died), Tammy has absorbed the fundamentals of the Christian faith–and lives them. She lives outside of time.

When she has to leave the shanty boat, Tammy struggles to fit into the Brent family way of life.

‘The ways of people puzzled Tammy, what they did and why. She set her mind to figure them out, questioning one or another of the household. But there were times when a strangeness came over her, holding her back, troubling her in a way that was new to her. Then she saw herself through their eyes–shabby, alien and unknowing, lowly. She saw that her manner of talking was not like theirs and she tried to improve her speech. Miss Renie, hearing her catch back an “ain’t,” began to help her with such things.
‘But even with fine clothes and proper speech Tammy was afeard she would not ever blend with the world here. Her way of thinking was too different. It must be that her life on the river had marked her and set a great gulf between her and these people.’ (p. 117)

Tammy, like all of us, has the need of human companionship, as well as the need for romantic love. Her grandfather is a good and thoughtful man, but when she and her grandfather rescue Pete Brent from drowning, and she nurses him back to health, she recognizes, “It would sure be nice to have somebody talk to her, somebody young like this. She’d been fair aching for somebody to talk back and forth with.” (p. 25) She falls in love with Pete Brent. Most of the first book tells what happens when her grandfather’s arrest forces Tammy to the home of the Brents. Will she and Pete end up a couple? Pete already has a prospective wife, Barbara. Read the books for yourself, if you want to know.

In the second book, Tammy Tell Me True (1959), one of the plot lines has Tammy involved with a beautiful, wealthy, but self-absorbed college student named Rita. Rita has an affair with a married man, becomes pregnant and plans to abort the baby. (This is a plot line completely left out of the movie “Tammy Tell Me True.”) Tammy immediately recognizes the wrongness of murdering an unborn child. If Rita will consent to bring the baby to term, Tammy volunteers to take the baby!

How that plays out we discover in the final book in the series, Tammy In Rome (1965).

These books are not easy to find, and usually not cheap. Research yesterday discovered the following prices. Tammy Out of Time (total cost $38.39 at abebooks). But if you have a Kindle or some similar electronic reading device, you can obtain the book for just $2.99 on amazon. A cheaper price for a print book could spring up; the copy I was able to get a few months ago was more reasonably priced.

Tammy Tell Me True was $11.44 (total, shipping included) at abebooks. Slightly more at alibris.

Tammy In Rome was $17.62 (total) at abebooks. A bit more at amazon.

These books deserve a wider audience. I hope print on demand will eventually make all three books much more available. Christians especially should discover these books. They would make ideal reading material for parents and children to read together. They would provide a springboard for useful discussions about the meaning of life. The books are clean. One time late in the second book Tammy utters a vulgar word. I am not sure if “Homer nodded,” or if Tammy was simply responding to the enormous emotional pressure she was under at the time due to an unjust accusation.

The movies are a pale imitation of the books. However, I definitely don’t want to be too hard on the movies. They introduced us to a wonderful character. The movies are not close to the depth of the books, but still they give us a fair idea of the wonderful Tammy. Barring a miracle, I would never have heard of the books had I not first seen “Tammy Tell Me True” in the early 60s, and had not viewed the first three films on DVD in recent years. The movies cry out to be remade by someone who wants to follow the books’ plots more closely, and who is idiotic enough to believe that just maybe the Christianity of Tammy and her grandfather might really have something to teach us about how the world is put together. It takes all types to make up the world. Maybe someday such a filmmaker will arise. Meanwhile, thank you to the original filmmakers for at least giving us a decent hint at the character of Tammy. They have also given us two excellent songs (see below).

Debbie Reynolds played Tammy in the first movie. She was about 24 or 25 as the movie was produced, but was a believable Tammy (age 17). Her song “Tammy” was the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957. Debbie Reynolds (b. 1932-d. 2016) had a long and successful career in show business. She died one day after the death of her famous actress daughter Carrie Fisher. She had the typical Hollywood life.

The astonishingly beautiful Sandra Dee was either 19 or 17 when “Tammy Tell Me True” was released in 1961. (Her date of birth is uncertain; there may have been some fibbing going on when she began work as a model.) She is the perfect Tammy, both beautiful and innocent in appearance. Would that she had had better plots; she was in my opinion a gifted actress capable of even more, had the plots provided the more.) Sandra Dee (b. 1942-d. 2005; or perhaps b. 1944-d. 2005). She too did some excellent singing as Tammy. She sang both “Tammy Tell Me True” and a slightly different version of the original “Tammy.” Both are very good indeed, and the first listed is artfully filmed in “Tammy Tell Me True.” She had the typical Hollywood life. (Is there an echo in here?). She struggled with anorexia nervosa, depression, and alcoholism. She was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child. She was married to Bobby Darin (and of course divorced; she didn’t marry again); I have purchased her son’s book Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, but it has not arrived yet.

Cid Ricketts Sumner (b. 1890-d. 1970) wrote about fourteen books, mostly fiction. She had an unusual life. She was homeschooled. She graduated from Millsaps College at age 18. In 1915 (age 24) she married a professor, James B. Sumner. The marriage ended in divorce 15 years later, but James B. Sumner shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1946. The marriage produced four children. One of her non-fiction books was Traveler in the Wilderness, an account of her time (at age 64!) with the Egger-Hatch river expedition through the Green and Colorado rivers. She participated only in the first year of the two year expedition, but was the only female member of the group.

Most unusual of all, she died at the hand of her grandson, bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Apparently it was a drug-related crime. As one writer put it, her violent death was a “shockingly-ironic contrast to the gentleness of her personality and her printed words.” She was 80 years of age. In Tammy, she has given us a character worth getting to know and admire and learn from. Cid Ricketts Sumner, thank you. Rest in peace.

I saw the movie “Tammy Tell Me True” at a movie theater in about 1961. I was in my middle teens. Tammy’s physical beauty (Sandra Dee) and her personality made an impression on me. A couple years ago I purchased a DVD set including the first three of the Tammy movies.

“Tammy and the Bachelor” (1957) featured Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Nielsen. “Tammy Tell Me True” (1961) starred Sandra Dee and John Gavin. “Tammy and the Doctor” (1963) again starred Sandra Dee, with Peter Fonda as her co-star. There is a fourth Tammy movie, “Tammy and the Millionaire” (1967), featuring Debbie Watson. I have not seen that, nor have I seen any of the one-season TV series from the late 60s dedicated to Tammy. It didn’t last long.

Tammy Tyree is a 17-year old girl/almost woman who lives on the shanty boat the Ellen B. with her grandfather Dinwoodie. That is, until he is arrested for selling moonshine. She can’t stay on the shanty boat alone, so her adventures in the bigger world start.

Tammy is uneducated and unsophisticated. But she is by no means a fool. Her grandfather was a sort of lay preacher, and Tammy has been raised with a very deep knowledge of the Bible.

My favorite of the three movies is still “Tammy Tell Me True.” “Bachelor” is second best. “Doctor” is the weakest entry. There Tammy is sometimes portrayed as doing foolish things which I think are a departure from the spirit of the true Tammy. Sandra Dee is still beautiful and Tammy still has a kind and pure character, but the movie is a step down.

Somewhere along the line I began to wonder where Tammy came from. This wondering was belated–I can be incredibly slow–but once I started looking it turned out that Tammy did not spring out of the imagination of some Hollywood bigwig. Tammy was based on a fictional character written about in books.

There were three books about Tammy. The first was Tammy Out of Time (1948). Then came Tammy Tell Me True (1959). The first two movies used those two books as a jumping off place, for both plots and the portrayal of Tammy’s personality. The third book was Tammy in Rome (1965).

The books were written by Cid Ricketts Sumner (b. 1890-d. 1970). She was born in Mississippi, and her southern roots can be felt in the books.

Anyway, I thought I would try to see how the first Tammy book matched up with the movies. Well, as my father used to say, every now and then the old blind sow finds an acorn. I found an acorn. Tammy Out of Time is a fine book. It is extremely well written. Tammy is a deeper person than as she is portrayed in the movies. The book is intellectually stimulating. It challenges our thinking about how life should be lived. It upholds the centrality of the Bible and Christian ways of thinking.

I bought the other two books. The three books are not necessarily easy to find, but a kind providence let me get them for reasonable prices. The next two books also held my interest easily.

The books are written the third person, but Cid Ricketts Sumner does it in such a way that sometimes it can almost be the first person as we read how Tammy is thinking. The books constantly reminded me of another book written by someone with a strong connection to the Mississippi River–a boy named Huckleberry Finn. Lack of exactly correct English did not stop Huckleberry Finn from communicating with us in a powerful fashion, nor does it stop Tammy.

Tammy’s grandfather is a central figure in the first book especially. He is a moonshiner, yes, but even in his criminal moonshining he acts on principle. He believes the government has no right to keep him from making corn liquor. (See the Whiskey Rebellion for a similar opinion.) When captured, he treats his captors with courtesy, and feeds them a good meal. Tammy at first rebels at giving the men a meal, but her grandfather rebukes her, and the meal went well for all. Grandpa relishes the chance to preach to the men in prison; in fact he, like Joseph in the book of Genesis, is put to honorable use in prison. His thoughtful brand of Christianity is the spiritual and intellectual center of the novel. Here he is preaching to his fellow prisoners on a Sunday morning:

‘”Now I been listening to you all.” Grandpa searched their faces with his narrowed blue eyes. “I been harkening and holding converse with one and another. This man says, ‘I had hard luck.’ Another says, ‘I growed up in bad circumstances,’ and another says, ‘It ain’t my fault, it’s the system of government that done me wrong.’ And another sets back and says he’s the common man and this-here’s the age of the common man and if he don’t get his share, he’s going to take it. I tell you it ain’t nobody but himself’s responsible for a man’s being low-down and mean and common. And a man that goes around whining and putting the blame on somethin’ outside himself ain’t fit to be called a man. He’s done lost his human dignity and how in this day of wrath is he going to be able to stand? I tell you can’t nobody outside yourself make you secure. You got to start inside and work out, and when you stand on your own feet, then the Lord is your right hand, pointing out the way; then the Lord is your shield and your buckler, of whom shall you be afraid?”‘ (p. 190)

Acceptance of personal responsibility as a key to life? Brother Dinwoodie must have been drinking some of his own corn liquor.

More about Tammy and Cid Ricketts Sumner next time.

I said last time that World War I was most of all a symptom of the dead or dying character of the Christian church in Europe. The U.S. brand of Christianity is similar–and was similar in 1917 when we foolishly entered World War I. As a race, we learned nothing from World War I, because we refused to face the basic truth that our Christianity was somehow practically flawed. But at least one man understood what was going on–no doubt there were others, although they may have been few–and said so clearly during World War I. Nikolaj Velimirovic, a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church, spoke out clearly in 1917, in England. His lectures were collected in a short book entitled The Agony of the Church.

While few of us have heard of Velimirovic–I heard of him only in the last few years–he was highly respected in his own communion. In 2003, 47 years after his death in 1956, Velimirovic was declared a saint in the Serbian Orthodox Church. Today we will give a few of Velimirovic’s quotes regarding the church and the world war. The church, he said, is still living. Again, I will put my comments in brackets.

‘Yes, she is still living, although she looks dead. She is only sleeping. But Christ is standing beside her now, calling: “Rise, ye daughter! Talitha Cumi!”‘ [Mark 5:41]

“The first Christians were persecuted most fiercely by the exclusive Jewish patriots, as all good Christians always have been persecuted by exclusive patriots. For it is an essential characteristic of a true Christian not to be an exclusive patriot, exalting his own nation and despising all others.”

“Another enemy of the Church from the beginning was Imperialism.”

“The present cataclysm of Europe may show the world that no earthly king is destined for dominion over our planet, but Christ, the Heavenly King of souls.”

‘”The present time should be one of self-criticism. The European race now needs this self-criticism more than any other race, and the Christian Church needs it more than any other religion in the world, for before this War the European race set itself up as the critic of the defects and insufficiencies of all other races, and the Christian Church exalted herself over all other religions “as high as the heaven is exalted over the earth.”‘

“Europe is sick, and her Church is sick too. How can a wounded man be healed unless his wounds are unveiled? Europe’s soul is sick, therefore her body is so sorely suffering and bleeding. Well, Europe’s soul is nothing else than Europe’s religion, but the religion of Europe to-day is not Europe’s guide and lord, it is Europe’s most obedient servant.”

Velimirovic pointed out that the churches of Austria, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy, Rumania, Belgium, Bulgaria, and his own Serbia, simply fell into line with the government line, never lifting a word of protest.

“The Churches are only the tools of Patriotism or Imperialism. Not one of the Churches has stated her standpoint as a different one from the standpoint of its respective Government. The Churches have simply adopted the standpoint of the Government. They seemed to have no standpoint of their own concerning this War between nations. As if the War were quite a surprisingly new event in history!”

“The Churches were not prepared to protest, they were prepared only to surrender to any temporal power. Therefore, they surrendered altogether, without making any effort, to Patriotism and Imperialism.”

“The present war is the result of the de-christianisation of Europe, and de-christianisation of Europe’s Church. The Church only is conscious of this fact and keeps silent. She has no courage to accuse because she has no courage to self-accuse.” [This may be too optimistic, however. One doubts that the church as a whole was conscious of the fact that the war was a result of de-christianisation. A few–Velimirovic and no doubt a handful of others, understood. But the church as a whole did not understand–and still does not. He is correct that the church has lacked the courage to self-accuse.]

“The poverty of European civilisation has been revealed by this war. The ugly nakedness of Europe has brought to shame all those who used to bow before Europe’s mask. It was a silken shining mask hiding the inner ugliness and poverty of Europe. The mask was called: culture, civilisation, progress, modernism. All was only vanitas vanitatum and povertas povertatum. When the soul fled away, what remained was empty, ugly and dangerous. When religion plunged into impotence, then:
“Science became a mask of pride. Art–a mask of vanity. Politics–a mask of selfishness. Laws–a mask of greediness. Theology–a mask of scepticism. Technical knowledge–a poor surrogate for spirituality. Journalism–a desperate surrogate for literature. Literature–a sick nostalgy and a nonsense, a dwarf-acrobacy. Civilisation–a pretext for imperialism. Fight for right–an atavistic formula of the primitive creeds. Morals–the most controversial matter. Individualism–the second name for egoism and egotism.
“Christ–a banished beggar looking for a shelter, while in the royal and pharisaic palaces lived: Machiavelli, the atheist; Napoleon, the atheist; Marx, the atheist; and Nietsche, the atheist, imperially ruling Europe’s rulers.”

“Europe had to live with Christianity, or to die in barbaric materialism and superstition without it. The way to death was chosen.”

“Being de-christianised, Europe still thought to be civilised. In reality, she was a poor valley full of dry bones.”

“The Church must first awaken out of her sleep and her European emptiness, and then Europe will come again to life. The Church has failed, not because she was not Europeanised, but just because she was too much Europeanised. Instead of inspiring Europe she was inspired by Europe, i.e. emptied by the empty Europe. The soul obeyed the body and became the body itself.”

“Europe has tried all the ways but the way of the Church, the European Church has tried all the ways but the way of Christ. Well, then, Europe must try the only way left, which is saintliness. The Church must give an example to Europe.”

“But which of the Churches ought to give this example for the salvation of Europe and of the world? Yours, if you like. Why not just your Anglican Church? But whichever undertakes to lead the way will be the most glorious Church. For she will lead the whole Church and through the Church Europe and through Europe the whole world to holiness and victory, to God and His Kingdom.”

A hundred and one years after Nikolaj Velimirovic gave his lectures in England, Europe has not learned. The U.S. has not learned. The church has not learned. Velimirovic spoke truths which seem clear and obvious, but almost no one has listened. Europe, and the de-Christianized West in general, seem bent on suicide. Must it be so? Another Serbian by birth, current political commentator Srdja Trifkovic, has said one or several times, that it will take a miracle for our civilization to be rescued and rejuvenated. Perhaps he is correct. But God can and sometimes does miracles. We can pray for a miracle, and we can, as Velimirovic told us last week, become the “divine wine” which a thirsty world so desperately needs.

Thank you, Nikolaj Velimirovic, for speaking important truths to us. Rest in peace.

World War I (1914-1918) was one of the most influential events of world history. The mostly European war cost 16 million dead, and another 21 million in casualties. The physical destruction was immense. Less than a generation later, the bigger and better (meaning worse) World War II followed. That was really part II of the world war initiated in 1914.

Since World War I was so important, it behooves us to ask what we learned from that titanic struggle. The answer is sad but simple.

Nothing.

We should probably not be too shocked at the answer. We as a race learn only very slowly. We resist learning things that humble us. We prefer to be left alone to do things our way.

For some time I have believed that World War I was most of all a symptom, rather than primarily a discrete event with enormous consequences. Yes, it was a discrete event with enormous consequences. We could spend a book, or series of books, outlining some of the consequences (the Russian Revolution with the millions dead which followed, Hitler, WW II, the murder of the Jews, and so on).

But why did World War I, so horrific in its effects on tens of millions of lives, happen? Why did Europe blow itself apart, as near as can be determined, over nothing? There was really nothing to fight about. The First World War was a symptom. It was a symptom that Europe’s Christianity wasn’t worth a whole lot in practical terms. Europe’s Christianity was dead, or dying–long before the first shot was fired in 1914.

Did nobody understand, at the time, what had happened? Yes, some understood. I don’t know how many. Probably very few in numbers, or we would have heard more about them. Had there been numerous such people, they would have had a much greater effect. But we can guess that there were at least a few.

We do know there was at least one man.

Nikolaj Velimirovic (1881-1956) was born in Serbia. As a young man he was dying of dysentery. He decided that if he lived, he would devote his life to God. He lived. He followed through on his promise to himself and to God. He became a monk in the Serbian Orthodox Church. (See Wikipedia for much more.)

In 1917, while World War I was still raging, he gave a series of lectures in England. He was still a relatively young man, 36 years old, but he spoke with prophetic wisdom. His lectures from 1917, collected today in a short book of about 53 pages entitled The Agony of the Church, give us the key to why World War I happened–and how we can stop it from happening next time. We didn’t listen in 1917, or in 1939, and we haven’t listened up through 2018, but we still could listen.

Nikolaj Velimirovic understood that the Christian church was the problem–and the Christian church was the solution.

A few quotes from the book follow. There are dozens more of great value. I won’t give page numbers because my edition has no page numbers. In some cases I will add my own comments after, in brackets.

“If Christ ever meant to form the Church as an institution He meant to form it not as the end but as the means, like a boat to bring its inmates safely over the stormy ocean of life into the quiet harbour of His Kingdom.”

“The initial and most obvious idea of the Church is collectiveness of sin and salvation. To pray alone and for one’s self is like eating alone without regard to other people’s hunger.”

“When the sun sees a man of science, wealth or politics, kneeling at prayer with the poor and humble, it goes smiling to its rest.”

“The real value of any Christian community is not to be found in its own prosperity but in its care for the prosperity of other Christian communities. So, for example, the value of the Protestants is to be found in their loving care for the Roman Catholics, and vice versa.” [Velimirovic was Serbian Orthodox, but his support of other communions is consistent throughout the book.]

“Christianity is neither monarchical nor republican. It does not care about institutions but about the spirit living in them. That institution is the best which is fullest of the Christian spirit. From this point of view, an autocracy may be better than a republic, and vice versa.”

“My friend, you are dissatisfied with the existing Churches, and you are anxious to form a new church, or sect, or some kind of religious organisation! How childish of you! The existing Churches are the most wonderful vessels–some in gold, others in silver or pottery–made by thousands of years and generations. I know your dissatisfaction comes because of the emptiness of those vessels and not because of their ugliness. Well then, pour the divine wine into them and they will please you just as the vessels in Cana of Galilee pleased the thirsty people around the table. No one of those people, being thirsty, ever thought of making new vessels for the wine, but to get wine as soon as possible into the vessels. To pour wine into existing vessels, that is really the needed miracle, my dear grumbler!” [The “emptiness” of our pietist, antinomian churches is indeed the problem. But Velimirovic correctly points out the solution–not complaining, but becoming a valuable “divine wine” in those vessels.]

“All the Empires founded upon rights have perished and must perish. The future belongs to the Empire of St Paul, an Empire founded upon loving service.” [John 13:12-17; the notion that the future might belong to the forces of good rather than to the forces of evil is one worth considering as at least a possibility.]

‘Nobody in the world is free but he who feels himself to be a prisoner of Christ. The greatest champion of freedom called himself “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ.”‘

Next week we will continue with our discussion of The Agony of the Church, and probably will arrive at some of Velimirovic’s comments specifically on World War I. The Agony of the Church is readily available at Abebooks, Alibris, and Amazon, as a recently published paperback. The best prices were at Abebooks, as low as $6.83 (shipping included), but a Kindle version can be purchased at Amazon for $.99. This is a very short book, so the cost per page may seem high for the paperback, but the valuable insights per page are high also.