W.C. Fields Speaks at the Louisiana Meeting
of Memphis General Assembly

Louisiana meeting speaker W.C. Fields receives the
obligatory LSU cup from CBF-LA Moderator Mike
Anderson. W.C. had us laughing until we cried, on
the way to a thoughtful, encouraging word.

For reports on the Memphis General Assembly including audio and video go to: www.thefellowship.info

Sidelights
ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF WILMER C. FIELDS

He saw Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow dead in the car in which they were ambushed by law enforcement officers near Gibsland, LA his home town. He saw the movie about their lives for the first time in Hamburg, Germany. The title, “Bonnie Und Clyde.”

Made a profession of faith in Old Saline Baptist Church, Saline, LA, during an August revival when he was eight years old. Was baptized in a creek.

First public performance was in that church, singing in a quartet with an aunt and two uncles, “Where We Will Never Grow Old.” At age eight.

At age nine, he and his family moved from the farm to Gibsland, a town of 1,200 people, when his father became agricultural agent for the Louisiana & Northwest Railroad.

Became a Boy Scout reaching rank of Eagle with 23 merit badges.

Elected to first office at age 12: president of Bienville Parish 4-H Clubs.

Began going to the Louisiana Baptist Encampment at Mandeville on Lake Pontchartrain at age twelve. At age 15, under the preaching of J. D. Grey, made a commitment to Christian vocational service. Preached his first sermon shortly afterward at First Baptist Church, Arcadia, LA, “Yield Not to Temptation.”

Lettered four years in basketball, Gibsland High School. Played drums in the band. On the boxing team and track team. Ran the quarter, half mile, mile and two mile events. There were thirty-two members of his high school graduation class, the Class of ’39.

During summers, he operated a “packing shed” for an uncle who was a wholesale produce buyer. Bought trainloads of tomatoes and Irish potatoes. When it came time to write his first business check, he practiced one time on a signature, decided it was OK, and has used it ever since. He has kept consecutive numbers on his personal checks from that day onward and by retirement March 31, 1987 was past No. 14,250, and on 4-12-08 total was 22,072.

His father was from a large family, all of whom enjoyed singing. He grew up singing with them. In high school days, particularly in the summer, he led music in revival meetings in numerous places in North Louisiana.

He entered college in the Fall of 1939, on a scholarship. He played drums in the college band and orchestra, and for a time worked in the college dining hall at Louisiana College and also at the college store, The Co-op.

During college days he was on the debate squad, learned to fly airplanes, and was active in drama. At the beginning of his sophomore year he was called (at age 18) to be pastor of Woodworth Baptist Church. He performed his first wedding on his nineteenth birthday. His first baptism was of an 84-year old woman. The First Baptist Church of Gibsland, his home church, had licensed him to preach August 10, 1938 (at age 16) and ordained him two years later. He preached on weekends at Woodworth and later at Gilliam and Belcher, LA, north of Shreveport.

He graduated from Louisiana College in May 1943 with a double major in English and History. He was elected Who’s Who in American Universities and Colleges.

Because of college theater work he was asked to join the Priscilla Beach Theater, Plymouth, Massachusetts, for the summer of 1943. He and 65 others performed in theaters throughout eastern Massachusetts.

He began his studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, in the Fall of 1943. The first weekend there he was invited to become Music Director for the Carlisle Avenue Baptist Church, Louisville. Later he also became Educational Director, all the while carrying a full schedule of seminary studies.

The church, where he served for five years, had about two thousand members, was growing, had a large group of young people and an outstanding Boy Scout troop. The church at one time during that period had 52 young people who were volunteers for vocational Christian service.

Later he became pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Louisville during the time he was in the doctoral program at the seminary. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the treatment of the life of Christ in the Apocryphal Gospels.

One of the turning points in his life came when he met Libby on a blind date. She was a student at Georgetown College. He spent a lot of time on that campus during her senior year. They were married two weeks after she graduated.

Their children, Randy and Christy, were born in Louisville. Becky was born in Yazoo City, MS. He became pastor of First Baptist Church there March 1, 1951. With a good staff and eager people, the church organized something new almost every week. During this time the church built an entire new plant on a new site, rotated the deacons and graded the Sunday School.

Fields expected to be a pastor all of his career. It was something of a surprise when he was asked to become editor of The Baptist Record, the Mississippi Baptist journal. He had been associate editor of the Louisiana College paper, The Wildcat, and journalism had been an avocation all along. The Baptist Record had a daily newspaper schedule one day a week, and he enjoyed it immensely.

After three years he and the family moved to Nashville to begin a 28-year career with the SBC Executive Committee in public relations. Here he found the greatest satisfaction in developing friendships and working relationships with people—Baptists and all kinds of others—in all fifty states and around the world.

He traveled in 137 countries and around the world three times. Twice in north-south orbits, one around the Atlantic and another around the Pacific. One circuit of 26,500 miles went eastward around the planet. During much of that overseas travel, Libby was with him.

In spite of a heavy work load and a busy schedule, he and the family found time for tent camping over much of the USA and Canada, including Newfoundland and Labrador. He and Libby took their Airstream trailer over much of the USA and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. The family enjoyed backpacking along the Appalachian Trail, canoeing on Tennessee white-water rivers, and camping in state and national parks from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

He has fished with Eskimos through the Bering Sea ice, caught salmon and rainbows over much of Alaska, fished for steelhead on the remote Pacific coast rivers of British Columbia, caught bonefish off Bimini, sailfish off the Florida Keys, tarpon off southwest Florida, bluefish and king mackerel off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He has boated sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and pursued fresh-water fish from Louisiana to the Chesapeake Bay. At retirement time he confessed to being seven years behind schedule in his fishing, but expressed determination to catch up.

He learned to fly airplanes on Porterfields and J-3 Piper Cubs. He has flown Luscombs, Aeroncas, Stinsons, Cessnas, Beachs, and once flew a Pan American Airlines DC-4. More recently he has been flying sailplanes (gliders)—a Sweitzer TG-3 and a Schleiker KA-6 in Tennessee, and a Sweitzer 232 in Hawaii. He once owned a Fairchild PT-19 war surplus open-cockpit military trainer which he and Libby used for cross-country transportation. He did aerobatics in a WWII P-51 Mustang.

In his travels he has stood in Red Square, Moscow, and walked the Great Wall of China, and covered the Western Hemisphere from Barrow in the Arctic Alaska to Punta Arenas at the tip of Chile and the Antarctic. Near the village of San Antonio in Ecuador he straddled the Equator with one foot in the Northern Hemisphere and one foot in the Southern Hemisphere. He has covered Eastern and Western Europe from Lapland in Norway and Sweden to the Mediterranean, and south from North Africa to the Cape of Good Hope. He has trekked from India to Nepal to Indonesia to Korea and Japan and moved over the Pacific from the Aleutians to Tahiti, Bali, New Zealand and Australia. One expedition to Antartic.

Libby, his companion of 56 years, died of leukemia in 2002. A year later he married Lawana Jane House McIver of Dallas. She added ten more grandchildren to her five!