Gee’s Bend in St. Clair

Quilts and quilters have compelling stories to tell

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Susan Wall
Submitted Photos

Gee’s Bend quilts, vibrant and spontaneous, have been exhibited and written about around the world, but for Claudia Pettway Charley, born in Gee’s Bend and now living in Pell City, quilts have been an everyday fact of life.

She grew up nurtured by the women whose quilts would one day be showcased in museums across the globe. It was a legacy, an art learned from her mother, Tinnie Pettway; her grandmother, Malissia Pettway; her aunt, Minnie Pettway; and other quilters of the close-knit community.

Sewn by descendants of slaves from a plantation on the Alabama River, these quilts have made Gee’s Bend and the quilters internationally famous.

From The Times of London — “The women of Gee’s Bend … have shattered artistic boundaries. Their bold, vibrant designs are as radically different from orthodox quilt patterns as Picasso was from anyone who preceded him.”

From The New York Times —  “What makes this (Gee’s Bend) tradition so compelling is that unlike most quilts in the European-American tradition, which favor uniformity, harmony and precision, Gee’s Bend quilts include wild, improvisatory elements: broken patterns, high color contrasts, dissonance, asymmetry and syncopation. …”

Quilting originated in the Orient as padded garments, then made its way to Europe by way of returning 13th century crusaders, and eventually evolved into bedding.

Quilts came to the New World with the first settlers and were necessary in the home well into the 20th century.

In the second half of the 20th century, there burst upon both the quilting world and the art world the phenomena of Gee’s Bend quilts. In 2018 the Bend’s quilts again came to prominence through the official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama painted by Amy Sherald of Baltimore. Mrs. Obama’s portrait gown features quilt blocks associated with Gee’s Bend quilts. In 2018, Sherald visited Gee’s Bend quilters and had a grand time in Tinnie Pettway’s home hearing stories from the past told by Tinnie and her sister Minnie.

Gee’s Bend quilter and entrepreneur, Claudia Pettway Charley, is partner in the family-owned business and currently owns the registered trademark for that business, That’s Sew Gee’s Bend. In a recent interview at the Pell City Library, among an array of her quilts as well as her mother’s, she talked about her process of making a quilt. “Everything comes from the head and the heart — what the feeling is at that moment, that time when you put a piece together. No patterns, nothing like that.”

The fascination and beauty of a Gee’s Bend quilt is its spontaneity. Each quilt is a serendipity of seemingly haphazard colors and shapes that harmonize into a thing of beauty which sings to the observer’s soul.

A New York Times reporter wrote that the earliest Bend quilts “…came into being alongside gospel, blues, ragtime and jazz,” an era when strict rules of music composition were tossed aside. Think of trumpeter Louie Armstrong or pianist Thelonious Monk departing from the written notes and improvising his mood of the moment into improvisations.

Now look at a Gee’s Bend quilt and realize the placement of color, fabric texture and shape speak a language of mood or emotion, unhampered by strict adherence to geometrical pattern and form. The green-bordered Double Glory quilt by Tinnie Pettway (Claudia’s mother) is as lively as New Orleans jazz vibrating the night.

Claudia acknowledged her quilts to be both improvisational and abstract — each quilt “is true to itself,” she said.

When asked her thoughts when beginning a new quilt, Claudia replied: “It could be your mood at that particular time; the weather; how you are feeling. If you’re feeling excited and happy, you may choose a lot of bright (colors) for the piece — I’m speaking of myself now. You just kind of know the direction you want the piece to go. It’s not just one thing; it could be a multitude of things that would make you choose certain fabrics and colors.”

Tinnie Pettway’s thoughts on starting a quilt correspond with her daughter’s. “Fabric is not the problem,” she said. “My problem is the design — and I have no special design (in mind) when I’m making a quilt. I think of how I want it, and sometimes that don’t work out, and I just let that go. I take a portion of the quilt, and I lay it out on the floor, and I look at it. I turn it around, and whatever looks the best to me when I place it together, then that’s the way I sew it.” Her yellow-bordered Multi Block Crossroads quilt is a striking example of how successfully she works this technique.

The Bend quilters do have “traditional patterns,” Tinnie said; “…things like Grandma’s Dream, Nine Patch, String, or the one we call House Top — those are regular quilts that everybody makes. But I have no particular pattern. I just sew pieces together. If they look good, I sew the pieces together.

“And everybody who sees one (of our quilts) knows that that’s a Gee’s Bend quilt. It’s put together just as our mind tells us — most time with no set form and no set pattern. That’s how we do it.”

How did they get here from there?

To understand Gee’s Bend quilts, you need to answer the question, “How did Gee’s Bend quilts originate?” To answer that, you must know some of the history of this particular bend in the Alabama River. And to appreciate the abstract beauty of the quilts, you must understand the pervasive tension between despair and hope in their lives.

Joseph Gee, from North Carolina, settled in the Bend around 1816 and established a plantation in the rich, fertile river-bottom land. According to Harvey H. Jackson II in his Rivers of History: Life on the Coosa, Tallapoosa, Cahaba, and Alabama, Joseph died in 1824 and left the plantation and 47 slaves to his nephews still living in the east. One nephew, Charles Gee, moved to Alabama and ran the plantation until the 1840s. At that time, to settle a debt, Charles and his brother deeded everything to Mark H. Pettway. In 1846, Pettway and family with more than a hundred slaves made the journey through the Carolinas and Georgia and into what by then was called Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

Pettway brought change. Jackson writes, “… His slaves cleared more land, planted more cotton and built their master a ‘big house,’ which he named Sandy Hill. Gee’s Bend became, according to one student of the region (Nancy Callahan), ‘a dukedom in the vast Southern cotton empire,’ and there Pettway lived in splendid isolation. Deep in the heart of a bulb-shaped peninsula, almost entirely surrounded by the river, Mark Pettway was free to do whatever he wished, and he did.”

When emancipation freed the slaves, they all took the Pettway surname whether blood-related or not, and all stayed on the Pettway plantation, working as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. In 1895, Pettway sold the land to Adrian Sebastian Van De Graff, a Tuscaloosa attorney who ran the farm as an absentee landowner.

By the 1920s, Gee’s Bend was an isolated African-American community. Farmers sold their cotton to a merchant in Camden. The price of cotton dropped in the late 1920s, and without telling the farmers, the merchant held the cotton hoping the price would go up in a few years. All the while, he kept account of what they bought, to be paid for when the cotton sold.

The price of cotton did not go up before he died. His heirs saw only what the farmers owed — and the farmers’ held cotton had “disappeared.”

In 1932, the merchant’s heirs sent men to Gee’s Bend to collect. And collect they did, taking everything — household goods, cows, mules, pigs, seed for next-year’s planting. The pillaging left the people destitute.

Jackson quotes a Christian Century article by Rev. Renwick C. Kennedy, “In October and November, 68 families, 368 people, were ‘broken up’ or ‘closed out’ — Alabama phrases that described both a physical condition and a psychological state.”

The stricken people faced the winter with the real prospect of starvation. Jackson writes that they survived through the help of both the Red Cross and a compassionate Wilcox County plantation owner who provided assistance with cornmeal and food.

From this poverty came the quilters thrift of salvaging still usable portions of worn-out overalls and clothing to make cover to pile on beds for warmth in an unheated, cardboard-thin house. These quilts are documented in Gee’s Bend: The Women and their Quilts and The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

Tinnie Pettway commented about this use of worn-out clothing, saying, “…In those old quilts, to have a different color…they would rip seams (of overalls), and where the seams had been folded, (it was) still holding its color. They’d sew it together.” This gave them shades of blue in the pieces.

She also told of the competition between the quilters. “They wanted to see which one could make the best quilt — even out of those ragged pieces they had. In spite of the lack of material, they used whatever they could find.” Tinnie and her sister, Minnie, made the quilt, Robust, of worn overall denim scraps. Note the splash of red in the lower right — a counterpoint of hope in a field of lonesome blue.

Claudia was asked, “Do you think any of the quilts reflected the distress of what the people were going through?”

She responded thoughtfully, “It’s possible. (When) you look at some of the old quilts and what they used for material — croaker sacks … overalls. … I think it was according to the attitude of the time, … using what they had available. They said to themselves, ‘We’re gonna survive regardless of what anyone says or what anyone does.’

“You know, growing up in the country like that, it makes you a survivor. Gee’s Bend was like a forgotten community — totally. So, we depended on each other. We depended on the farming, eating off the land, doing anything we could do at that time for survival. And it makes today seem simple.”

In Claudia’s quilt, Crimson Blues, she has created a sense of tension in the shapes and placement of red, blue and black pieces. The themes of despair and hope seem to throb through Gee’s Bend quilters’ blood and come to life in their quilts.

Drive for more than quilt-making

Not only was there a determination to survive physically, but there was also the struggle for basic citizen’s rights, such as the right to vote.

Tinnie Pettway remembers that well. “I went over to register to vote, and they put me in a little room in the courthouse. It just had one door. Finally, it got dark, and I looked up, and there was these three men standing right in the door looking at me. I just looked at them, and they backed out. I don’t know why they was looking at me, trying to frighten me or not. I don’t know. But they backed out, and finally I was able to register to vote. They sent me my card saying that I qualified.”

Claudia’s aunt, Minnie Pettway, recalled the same intimidation and that the officials threw away her first registration forms. “Threw them in the garbage!” But she kept trying. “A lot of people wouldn’t go. I guess they were somewhat afraid, but my daddy wasn’t afraid of nothing, so I just went along with him.” Finally, as a result of a court hearing in Selma, Minnie was a registered voter. “When we were declared registered voters, whenever there was an election, we went to the polls and voted.”

Tinnie, Minnie, and others from Gee’s Bend marched in Camden, the county seat for the right to vote. “Most of the people who was marching was not the educated people … many of them were afraid to march. They were afraid of their jobs — that they would lose their jobs,” Minnie remembered. “My daddy (Eddie Pettway Sr.), used to get truckloads of people and take them to Camden to register to vote, and they would put them all in jail. Then a day or two later, my daddy would go back with his truck and try to bond them out of jail. … Daddy went to get them, but they would go back a day or two later protesting again.”

Eddie Pettway Sr., who was Claudia’s grandfather, marched at Edmund Pettus Bridge with others from Gee’s Bend. “They ran over them with horses,” Minnie recalled, “and would spray them with tear gas. My daddy would drag the ladies out of the area where the tear gas was strong.”

The determination to keep on until rights were won seems to be sewn in Tinnie’s Gee’s Bend Geometric Trails quilt of multi-colored panels bordered by panels of red and gray — no curves in these trails, they lead straight ahead to the goal.

When asked if the young folk today realized the struggles of their grandparents, she replied, “They don’t, really. My grandkids, Claudia’s kids, they enjoy listening to the stories, but they just can’t imagine going through that.”

Not only could the younger generation not comprehend what the struggle had been, but neither could the crowds at the museums when Gee’s Bend quilters appeared at exhibits.

The women traveled from museum to museum for each exhibit of their “works of art” in galleries across the USA. “We would talk,” Tinnie remembered, “and tell the people how it was coming up in Gee’s Bend and the struggle we had here. … What we were telling (about our lives) was unimaginable (to them).

“When our bus would come in (to a museum), they’d be standing out like the president was coming. And they would just hug us, and some of ‘em were crying, and I thought, ‘My God, these are just quilts!’ … We had lived with these quilts a lifetime. They wasn’t art to us as (they were) to the people we were taking them to.

“It was almost unbelievable,” she remembered. “That’s when I had my first flight — to a museum in California. That’s the first time I got on a plane, and I’m telling you, that was something. I was kind of afraid when I got on there, but once that plane took off, I thought, ‘Well, I might as well settle down, cause I’m up here now, and they’re not gonna take me back.’”

She chuckled at the memory and continued. “It was joyous time. I had my first time to eat goat cheese on one of those trips. … A lot of those quilters didn’t like that goat cheese, but I liked that goat cheese, and I’d say, well give me your goat cheese!”

Claudia’s wish is that upcoming generations will find hope and success because of  the struggles of the past and that they will continue the quilting heritage of Gee’s Bend. “We don’t want it to become a dying art. We want to continue to keep the quilting in the forefront of not just artists but quilters and everyday people. We (quilters) have to find like-minded people to know where that place is, and from there it grows.”

She is hopeful that soon, innovative and spontaneous quilting will take root in Pell City and St. Clair County.

Remembrance of past, hope for future

In their interviews, both Claudia and her Mom talked about Gee’s Bend’s isolation, poverty, struggle for survival, and the progress that had been made by the community’s determination and resourcefulness.

“Things are much better now,” Tinnie said. “Education is much better. We’ve got some very good kids that have grown up here — doctors, lawyers, nurses — that came from Gee’s Bend in spite of its beginnings.”

The post-slavery trials and tribulations of our African-American citizens in Wilcox County’s Gee’s Bend, with its injustice and inhumanity, echo in all of Alabama’s counties. A little delving into St. Clair County’s 19th Century estate records expose that inhumanity. However, the subtlety of injustice lies in the fact that it may fall upon anyone, regardless of race, color or belief.

But like those brilliant colors splashing through Gee’s Bend quilts, hope brightens the future. And this must be a determined hope for all.

Tinnie expressed it this way in a poem:

I’m not giving up in this life
Although there may be some strife
It may be sometime I have to wait
I know it’s never too late.

From this life I won’t retire
To be productive is a lifelong desire
I’ll go on, no, I won’t die
A new lease of life I have acquired

I feel now I’m more blessed
And I truly know I fear less
I also know I have to press
I want what I want and won’t settle for less

I will achieve, I see my goals
I won’t stop, no I won’t fold
Through the wind storm, rain or cold
To my faith and His hand I’ll continue to hold.

In this poem, Determined, from her book, Gee’s Bend Experience, Tinnie expresses hope, faith and determination. And in her quilts and daughter Claudia’s quilts, the careful observer can hear those three harmonies swirling in a crescendo of cloth and color to proclaim to the world Hallelujah! Amen! l

Stately Ashville home

Bothwell-Embry-Campbell House a landmark with storied history

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Susan Wall

Several families have left their mark on Ashville’s 183-year-old Bothwell-Embry-Campbell House. The widow of the first owner obtained a license to operate a tavern within its walls. The next family raised 12 children there. An ophthalmologist reportedly used some upstairs rooms for a temporary office. His widow is rumored to have spent $60,000 on renovations to the house and grounds that included lowering the ceilings, installing an HVAC system and building a 20-by-40-foot heated, in-ground swimming pool with a waterfall.

Fortunately, the original character and dignity of the two-story frame, classic revival house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been retained. Its four fluted, Doric columns still stand on the front veranda. The original hand-sawn clapboards still cover the outside walls, and the second-floor balcony still hangs without visible support. In the backyard is the original four-seater outhouse.

It was its stateliness as well as its history that attracted the current owners, James and Barbara Mask, to Bothwell-Embry-Campbell House. “She saw it in a real estate ad and had to have it,” James says. “She has filled it with antiques she bought at garage sales, flea markets and antique shops.” They’ve lived in the house since the spring of 2015.

Built in 1835-36 by Ashville’s second physician, Dr. James J. Bothwell, the original structure contained only four rooms, two up and two down. At that time, the kitchen was in the backyard, as was customary for the period. In 1852, Dr. Bothwell added a dining room, kitchen and back porch.

After his death, Mrs. Bothwell got a license to operate a tavern in her home. In 1857, she sold all her Ashville holdings and moved to Mississippi to be near her father’s people. Her cousin, Payton Rowan, bought the house and sold it several years later to W.T. Hodges. In 1880, Hodges sold it to Judge Leroy F. Box, who gave it to his daughter, Lula, as a wedding gift when she married young Ashville attorney James E. Embry in 1882.

Soon after moving in, the Embrys added a large master bedroom downstairs and enclosed the back porch, turning it into a hallway. Their having 12 children may explain the 1917 addition of two upstairs bedrooms. That addition changed the rear roofline of the house, while maintaining the integrity of the original structure.

In 1978, Dr. Lamar M. Campbell and his wife, Rebecca, purchased the house and filled it with their own antiques. Neighbors have told James Mask that Dr. Campbell had his office and possibly an examination room at the rear of the second floor before moving his office to Springville.

After her husband’s death, Mrs. Campbell continued her extensive renovations, adding the HVAC system, the pool and pool house. During the eight years she lived there alone, she bought and sold antiques, storing them in the upstairs rooms while she lived primarily in the back of the downstairs area. It was the constant in and out of furniture that necessitated the only change the Masks have made to the upstairs.

“We reworked and repainted the second-level foyer, because the walls had been skinned with the constant moving of furniture up and down the stairs,” says James. They painted and papered most of the downstairs rooms in various colors and patterns, leaving the green woodwork alone. They haven’t made any structural changes.

Mrs. Campbell lowered most of the downstairs ceilings to accommodate the heating and air conditioning ducts. “The house is easy to heat and cool,” James says. “It has six fireplaces, and four were converted to gas by Mrs. Campbell.” The house also has its two original chimneys made of hand-pressed brick. They serve the two upstairs and downstairs rooms in the original part of the house. In addition, the master bedroom added by the Embrys has a chimney, and the kitchen has an inside one that also served the old kitchen, according to an anonymous article on the house in the Ashville Archives and Museum’s files.

All the mantels and trim are original to the house, but Mrs. Campbell had them pulled out and refinished. Originally, the house was lighted by candles and oil lamps. Several old chandeliers have been wired for electricity.

James was amazed at how solid the house was when he bought it, considering its age. “There’s not a rotten piece of lumber in it,” he says. The framework is made of massive timbers jointed and pegged together. The foundation joists are made of hand-hewn heart pine that is notched and fitted. The four rooms of the oldest section of the house have their original heart pine floors, also fitted together with joints and pegs. Mrs. Campbell had those floors refinished, too.

The Masks have furnished the large room to the right of the downstairs foyer as a parlor, while the room to the left of the foyer is a formal dining room. In the parlor are a working Victrola and a set of records that Barbara picked up at an estate sale, and a 1930s-era radio that James bought for $15. “I bought it to restore the cabinet, but when I got it home, I discovered it actually works,” he says.

A door at the rear of the foyer leads to the back hall, master bedroom and bathroom. The bathroom is split, with a toilet in its own closet on one side of a small hall and a clawfoot tub that was in the house when the Campbells purchased it on the other.

Behind the master bedroom is a large den that has a trap door leading to a tiny, dry basement with a headroom of 5.5 feet. It’s where the heating and air conditioning unit, the hot water heater and water pipes are located. When high winds or tornadoes threaten Ashville, James keeps that trap door open. “We’ve had to go down there a time or two since we’ve lived here,” he says. Another outside door also leads to the basement.

According to one of their neighbors, there was a tunnel under the house during the War Between the States. Supposedly, slaves came and went through that tunnel, which led to the back of the property. “Sometimes they (possibly the Hodges family) hid their slaves in that tunnel, so I’m told,” says James. “They hid their livestock in Horse Pens 40.” He has been unsuccessful in finding the location of the tunnel.

The modern kitchen is the third for the house. The first was outside where the swimming pool is now, according to the Masks. The second was added by the Embrys and is now a laundry room. The formal dining room leads into the kitchen with its breakfast nook. The kitchen, in turn, leads into the laundry room.

An 1835 coin is embedded in the handrail of the staircase that leads from the foyer to the second floor. The staircase has a hand-carved curved newel post, and there is an ornamental pattern hand-carved into the stringer.

On the second floor there’s a large bedroom to the right of the foyer, with a walk-in closet behind it. “That’s my favorite,” James says, as he ushers a visitor into the bedroom. “I would choose it if we slept upstairs.” To the left of the foyer are two more bedrooms, one leading into another, with a small room at the back that may have been Dr. Campbell’s office when he moved to the house. It’s used for storage now.

Two features make the upstairs bathroom a bit quirky. First of all, it’s as large as most modern bedrooms. Second, it has an antique, galvanized metal tub smack in the middle. “Mrs. Campbell was so attached to this tub that she gave it its own room,” James jokes. It was the first tub in the house when plumbing was installed, but it isn’t connected to the water pipes now. It’s strictly for show.

At the front of the house is the upstairs porch or balcony, which has no visible means of support. It is cantilevered off the floor joists of the oldest section of the house. “People probably sat on this porch and watched the Indians ride by on their ponies, then saw Confederate soldiers march through town and then the Union soldiers,” James says. Nowadays, the traffic noise of US 231 (Fifth Avenue), which the house faces, drowns out a person’s thoughts on the porch, especially in the afternoons when Ashville schools let out.

Once upon a time, a brick driveway encircled the house, but Mrs. Campbell’s renovations chopped it up. She enclosed a porch at the back and turned it into a den, then built a sunroom over one section of the brick. Above the sunroom is a deck.

Mrs. Campbell also built the garage, which is next to the privy. The latter is divided into two spaces, one for men, the other for women. (James says the structure next to the privy is the original corncrib, but articles at the Ashville Museum and Archives call it a smokehouse.) Beyond the sunroom is the pool, with its own screened-in picnic room on one side, and a bathhouse on the other.

“We use the pool a lot,” Barbara Mask says. “Our grandkids and great-grandkids enjoy it, too.” One grandson recently used the house and grounds for his wedding and reception.

Behind the privy lies a vast expanse of lawn that includes several pecan trees. A fence encloses the nearly 4 acres of land and delineates the property line. The house and grounds encompass an entire city block.

In the front yard is the latticed well house, with its hand-carved pineapple finial. The only nails in this structure are ones used in repairs through the years. James can vouch for the purity and taste of the well water. “When I work in the yard in the summer, I often draw a cup to drink,” he says.

The Masks love the house but have put it up for sale because health issues are making it difficult to maintain it, the pool and the grounds. Their hope is that the next owners will appreciate its history as much as they do.

Ed Gardner Sr.

Handed over the blueprints for success

Story by Paul South
Submitted Photos

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
— Proverbs 29:18

For most, visions of economic development mean shiny, sleek sedans slowly rolling off assembly lines.

But Ed Gardner Sr. envisioned St. Clair County’s economic boom not just in big manufacturing, but in cozy convenience stores, fueled by gasoline, soda and snacks.

Local entrepreneur Bill Ellison remembers Gardner’s first retail project, a convenience store on the I-20 corridor. The area would later grow to include a Wal-Mart Superstore and a wealth of other retailers, restaurants and motels.

Ellison recalls a ceremony announcing the project, the biggest he’d undertaken.

“Ed Gardner got up there and basically, he said, this project was going to change the whole way of life as Pell City knows it. It was going to be so important to the community, it was going to be about a way of life. It was going to be about better city services. It was going to be about public parks. It was going to be about all the things they could do with that money (tax revenue) that would start coming in off of that development. They would have extra money to do things to make this a better community, and it actually turned out that way.”

Indeed, it did. And the seed planted by that small retailer, and the recruitment of big manufacturers across the county, would lead to public parks, better public access to Logan Martin Lake and the Coosa River, the CEPA Center, more money for education and emergency services. Higher wages and better benefits for the county’s people in turn boosted the real estate market.

Gardner, now 82, the recipient of the 2018 Chairman’s Award from the St. Clair County Economic Development Council, is quick to downplay his role. While he was honored by the award, he says it was undeserved.

The award is given annually to a person who has gone above and beyond in their support of economic development in St. Clair County. “These are private citizens – not public officials – who are out there trying to make this county better,” said current St. Clair County Economic Development Council Executive Director Don Smith.

“I’ve always looked at that as, I was paid for everything I did. Like when I was nominated Citizen of the Year, I didn’t think it was fair. The things that I have accomplished are what I’m supposed to be doing. That’s my job, it’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I get up every morning, every day with that in mind, that this is what I’m supposed to accomplish. Awards like that are for people who give of their time, not people who are paid for their time.”

He adds, “It’s a great award, and I’m extremely proud to receive it. And it certainly makes me feel good that the people that I’ve known for the 19 years that I’ve been here, feel toward me that they would want to acknowledge what I have done with a ceremony and a way to commemorate it. It’s a tremendous honor and one that I really don’t feel that I necessarily deserve.”

His resume’ and those who have known Gardner through the years would quickly disagree.

Consider just a few of his accomplishments: Director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs in the second administration of then-Gov. Fob James, Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the late Jack Kemp. He also served in regional leadership roles for HUD in Birmingham, Atlanta, Florida and Oklahoma City.

He played a key role in Alabama’s burgeoning automobile industry, helping continue the Mercedes Benz project in Tuscaloosa County, and later Honda in Lincoln and the industries that would spin off the auto industry, benefitting all of St.  Clair County. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Those who have come to know Gardner over his 19 years in St. Clair County are quick to disagree with his claim that the Chairman’s Award is undeserved. They contend he is the foundation for economic prosperity that St. Clair County has enjoyed in recent years. Its ranking as one of the fastest-growing counties in the state was built in large part, they say, through Gardner’s efforts.

And it came because he brought unity to the county’s drive for prosperity.  Former Pell City Mayor Guin Robinson said in the late 1990s, local leaders committed to work together, ignoring political turf wars that can kill the best-intentioned ideas in small towns and rural counties. St. Clair has had its share, thanks in part to its geography. Not this time.

 “Sometimes the stars align. We had progressive leaders, and we were all committed to do whatever it took to bring the county together around economic development.”

And the biggest piece of the puzzle, many say, was attracting Ed Gardner to St. Clair County.

“The Ed Gardner hire was the biggest the county ever made,” Ellison said. “Forming the EDC and hiring him, I can’t think of anything that’s been more important for this county. Ed always had the right words at the right time. He was an artist with words. He would pick the absolute right word. It was a work of art when Ed spoke.”

Longtime Gardner friend and colleague, local real estate executive Lyman Lovejoy, agrees. Lovejoy still pinches himself when he thinks of how the county landed Gardner for its point person on the economy. He knew how to build confidence and how to bring people together. Lovejoy was on the EDC board for 15 years and was part of the team that interviewed Gardner for the its executive director role.

“He’s got a pedigree that’s unreal. When he was in the interview, he got a phone call and said he had to take it, that it was from then-U.S. Rep. Richard Shelby. I thought it was staged. But it was Richard Shelby. That’s the kind of people he knew.”

The man that holds the job now, EDC Executive Director Don Smith, said that Gardner’s experience at the state and federal level paid dividends.

“It was critical in his ability to come here and have the patience and the temperament to bring everyone together, even if they didn’t want to,” Smith said.

Lovejoy, a past recipient of the Chairman’s Award, added, “He is the one that put us on the road to economic development here in the county. He brought our county together, the towns together, all working the same way for the same purpose.”

Gardner’s philosophy was as simple as the old adage of the rising tide that lifts all boats. A recent informal survey of the county’s major employers revealed that the workforce at each firm came from across the county.

“When you’re talking about jobs, it’s not zip code specific or city specific,” Smith said. “When a company’s expanding with 200 jobs, that’s good for all areas of St. Clair County.”

“He preached a sermon: “Just because they put something in Steele or Pell City, it benefits everybody (countywide),” Lovejoy said. “All the jobs don’t come from Steele or Ashville or wherever. His people skills were unsurpassed.”

And under Gardner’s leadership, St. Clair’s economic development blueprint became a model for other cities and counties.

“Ed validated economic development in St. Clair County,” Lovejoy says. “Other counties would call us and say, ‘How are y’all doing this? Show us what you’re doing.’ That’s going on today.”

Would economic development have transformed St. Clair into one of the state’s fastest growing counties without Gardner?

“It certainly wouldn’t have been as big,” Lovejoy says.

Gardner shies away from an individual spotlight. He will quickly tell you that economic development rests on a two-tiered foundation – teamwork and integrity, doing what you say you’ll do, without excuses.

He will quickly share credit with public and private sector leaders he’s worked with, as well as with his wife of 60 years, Betty, and his children.

And then there is his faith. In their retirement years, the Gardners travel to cities large and small, following their favorite Southern Gospel groups. Whether in Louisville, Ky., or Shipshewana, Ind., or towns near and far, he prefers performers who sing together for the glory of God, not singers who try to bring attention to themselves onstage.

“I’ve always liked gospel music, but I have never liked the demeanor of the most popular groups when they were performing on stage. To me, it ought to be a worship experience.”

Economic development is the same way, he says – perfect shared harmony. And every shared success is granted by the Almighty.

His career of success has also endured pain.

Gardner led the Oklahoma City field office of HUD. Days after he left that role in 1995 to return to Alabama, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in a horrific act of domestic terrorism. Some 168 people died, including 35 of Gardner’s HUD colleagues. Nineteen children being cared for at the America’s Kids Day Care Center in the building, were among the dead. He tries to block out the memory, but it never fades.

Asked how he was impacted by the bombing, Gardner took a long pause. His voice broke and tears came. Those that were lost, he said, “were some of the best people I ever knew. I try to let people know how I feel about them rather than waiting until tomorrow or next week or next month, because . . . because I know that I may not have another opportunity.”

With the Chairman’s Award, Gardner’s adopted home expressed its feelings for him. And while grateful, Gardner’s humility never ceased.

“The thing that I would want people to know is that I never promised anything that I didn’t think I could deliver. And I never committed to anything that I didn’t do my best to complete in an exemplary way.”

He adds: “There’s nothing that I can look back on that can make me look back and say I wish I’d taken this path rather than that path. I tell you, the Lord has been so good to me in giving me a great family that has supported me in times I wasn’t able to be there physically to support them. They never wavered. Therefore, I know I’ve done what I should have done. I am without any doubt, one of the most blessed people that has ever lived.”

And his greatest reward comes not through gleaming plaques or grand ribbon cuttings, but in something more tangible.

“What’s gratifying to me is that when I walk through one of these plants, whether its Honda or  Eismann (Automotive, North America)  here in Pell City or WKW, and I’m walking through there and I see a man or woman there that I had  seen in the past (making minimum wage) and (now) seeing them making a good hourly wage plus benefits, that’s what does more for me than anything else – knowing that their standard of living has really improved.”

Guin Robinson characterized Gardner’s legacy.

“You can have all the necessary things for success,” he said. “But it takes a leader. And it takes someone who can put all the ingredients together. You can call him an architect. You can call him a builder, but Ed put it together. … We all knew we had those things, but we needed someone to put it together. I’m forever thankful and forever grateful that that person was Ed Gardner.”

Cinertainment comes to Pell City

Story by Linda Long
Photos by Graham Hadley
and Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Heads up, Pell City and environs, Cinertainment has come to town, and there’s nothing else like it anywhere around. When people talk about the ‘wow factor,’ this place defines it.

Take it from Mark Vaughan, facility director of the 47,892-square-foot facility, which houses seven theatres with reclining seats, 12 bowling lanes, a café and bar, and an arcade complete with zip-line – all under one huge roof.

The name is a derivative of the words, cinema and entertainment, but that barely begins to describe the multiplex, multifaceted attraction. 

As Vaughan explained, the innovative concept is geared toward serving as a destination point, drawing patrons from Lincoln, Leeds, Anniston, Oxford and Talladega.

“Of course, we would love to draw from the Birmingham area as well, but those cities are where we expect to get our customers,” said Vaughn.

Ten years in the planning and construction phase, Cinertainment opened its doors in January to record crowds. As Vaughan points out, the facility was a long time coming but well worth the wait.

“We offer something for just about everybody,” he said.

Mayor Bill Pruitt, who cut the ribbon on opening night and took his turn on the zip line, echoed the sentiment, crediting multiple city administrations; St. Clair Economic Development Council; developer Bill Ellison, president of I-20 Development; and St. Clair County Commission. 

“This very well could be the single most important date in Pell City history,” Pruitt said, making a joke about Facebook and the years of discussions and comments from an impatient community. “This is the fourth administration to have this dream, he said, singling out former Mayors Adam Stocks, Bill Hereford and Joe Funderburg. “Joe worked diligently,” he said. Ground was broken on the complex just past the end of Funderburg’s term and the beginning of Pruitt’s.

“I deserve no credit for this,” Pruitt continued. “I am just honored to be a part of this and to be able to stand here tonight. After walking around inside and seeing this place, it was well worth the wait.”

The mayor also talked of Ellison’s role. He said Premier Cinema CEO Gary Moore told him how excited he was to finally meet Ellison a couple of years back. He remembered Moore telling him, “ ‘ Who in the heck is this Bill Ellison who keeps calling me about bringing this movie theater to Pell City?’ ”

Ellison, long known for his persistence in recruiting business to Pell City, recalled, “I stayed on him. I kept calling him and telling him about Pell City. We started building a relationship, and it progressed to the point that we could put the right people together to make it happen.”

Ellison noted that it indeed was a team effort of the city and county, noting that St. Clair EDC Executive Director Don Smith played a major role in “putting the package together.”

Moore agreed, saying Smith and City Manager Brian Muenger’s support for the project ensured its success. “Without their support and enthusiasm, this project would never have happened.” He added thanks to Funderburg as well.

So now the dream is finally reality. “It’s not only a great thing for Pell City,” said St. Clair Commissioner Tommy Bowers, “it’s a great thing for St. Clair County.”

Moore took it a step further. “This is a destination attraction. It will draw from counties from miles around. It is a lifestyle enhancement, we think, of great proportions.”

He’s right. From 12 state-of-the-art bowling lanes to seven “luxury experience” movie theaters, an indoor zip line and obstacle course, Cinertainment’s management take their night-out-on-the-town experience to a whole new level.

“We’re offering what we call the ultimate luxury in movie going,” said Vaughan.  “All the seats are reclining. The recliners are electrically powered in all auditoriums, complete with USB ports and swivel tables for dining. Movie goers may order their food. We’ll give you a buzzer. When your food is ready, we’ll buzz you and you go right to your theater door to get your meal.”

As Vaughan explained, “this way you can have your popcorn and Coke or a full meal right there at your own table.”

The expanded food and beverage options are expected to be a huge draw, with a full-service kitchen, a pub and full bar, offering four top drafts, four light beers and four craft beers from local breweries.

Food choices include pizza, hamburgers, grilled chicken, wings, onion rings, fried green tomatoes, chef salad and fried pickles.

For those who might want to work off some of those calories, Cinertainment offers a zip line and an obstacle course. And, of course let’s not forget the arcade.  “Our game room has about 46 different games. “You can redeem points here, then take them to the redemption center to see what you can buy,” said Vaughan. “We’ve got winnings ranging from trinkets to an Xbox.”

The facility also offers space for private events such as birthday parties and business meetings.

“We’ve even gotten a couple of churches interested in holding Sunday services here. Like I said, something for everybody,” said Vaughan. l

 

Cinertainment is located at 2200 Vaughan Lane in Pell City.
– Carol Pappas contributed to this story.

 

St. Clair Outdoors

From hunting to climbing to cycling:
Not one single reason to stay inside

Story by Loyd McIntosh
Submitted Photos
Discover Archive Photos

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
— Margaret Atwood

The promise of another spring is just around the corner. Time to shake off the fog of winter, as well as the handful of pounds many gained waiting for the wet, cold and gray misery of winter to finally come to an end. Spring is a time to put the remote control down, shut off the cell phone, get outdoors, learn a new skill, and, most importantly, have some fun!

St. Clair County is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, and there are a ton of local experts ready to help you take advantage of the many outdoor activities available just outside the front door. Regardless of your physical fitness level or knowledge of a new interest, the only limit is your imagination and willingness to try to something new. The following is just a sample of some of the activities you can do throughout the county.

Kayaking Big
Canoe Creek

More and more people are learning about the great kayaking and canoeing along Big Canoe Creek, a 50-plus-mile-long waterway snaking through St. Clair County and part of the Big Canoe Creek Watershed. 

One of the most ecologically diverse in the state, Big Canoe Creek is home to more than 50 species of fish and one of the healthiest populations of mussels in the country. The creek is also stunningly beautiful, and one of the best ways to experience it is in a kayak.

“Our creek has lots of wildlife on it,” says Randall Van, owner and operator of Yak Tha Creek, a small business providing kayaking experiences based in Ashville. Among the species of fish are alligator gar, crappie, brim and red eye bass.

Van says many of his customers are anglers who want to fish the creek from kayaks. “I have a lot of fishers that come to me and want to fish the day out there, fishing on the edges, and find them a little hole where there’s a deep spot to fish because our water goes from ankle-deep to 12 to 15 feet deep.”

Even if fishing isn’t your thing, kayaking Big Canoe Creek is a spectacular way to appreciate the natural wonder of St. Clair County.

The section of the creek Van runs his business on and uses for personal kayaking is very secluded, keeping the modern distractions from the natural habitats to a minimum. Even an expert like Van is surprised from time to time at what he encounters when on the water. “I’ve been down it many times with my wife and all of a sudden a deer will cross the creek in front of you,” he says. “We had a bald eagle visit the creek several times last year to go fishing itself. Lots of neat stuff like that can be happened upon while you’re out there.

“This is part of the thrill and why I enjoy it so much,” he adds. “You just never know what you’re going to kayak up to.”

Bird Watching

If you’re interested in something a little less strenuous or just want a more relaxed experience in the outdoors, bird watching might be just the thing for you. Thanks to the county’s diverse natural resources and location along the flight path for many interesting species, St. Clair County offers ample opportunities to see an array of birds on their way to and from locations as far-flung as the Arctic Circle to South America.

 “During the spring you’ll definitely get a lot of spring migrants,” says Joe Watts, president of Birmingham Audubon and the author of Alabama Birding Trails (alabamabirdingtrails.com). “There are several hundred birds that migrate through Alabama each spring and fall, and some actually stop in Alabama and spend the summer here.”

According to Watts, many birds that make their way to our neck of the woods launch from the Dauphin Island-Gulf Shores area when the wind is ideal, allowing them to make the trip several hundred miles north.

“Sometimes they’ll fly all the way to St. Clair and Jefferson counties to the first line of the Appalachian Mountains, and then they’ll settle,” explains Watts. “They’re going as far as they can until they’re worn completely out.” Among the birds you’re likely to see during the spring include the rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo buntings and hawks, which are plentiful during the spring and fall along the ridges of Horse Pens 40.

On Logan Martin Dam, wading birds are common sights, such as the black-crowned night heron and other similar species that feed on the fish along the rocky shoreline of the lake. The majestic bald eagle, with its wingspan of up to 7.5 feet, can also be viewed throughout the area.

Other areas around the county that are great for bird watching include Ten Islands Historic Park, where visitors can see blue-winged warblers, along with prairie warblers and white-eyed vireos beginning in March, and Neely Henry Dam, where a variety of gulls, such as Ring-billed, Bonaparte’s and Herrings, as well as cliff and barn swallows, are visible throughout the spring. To get started, all you need is a willingness to get outdoors and patience. A nice pair of binoculars is the perfect complement.

Bouldering at Horse Pens 40

One of the most physically challenging activities around the county has to be bouldering at Horse Pens 40. However, if you’re up to the challenge, your hard work will be rewarded. Increasingly, the nature park situated on Chandler Mountain is gaining a reputation for some of the best bouldering in the nation – if not the world.

Made up of rare combinations of sandstone with bands of iron throughout, the rock formations at Horse Pens 40 are tightly condensed and due to the uniqueness of the formation, provide a more challenging climbing experience. “A lot of places that people go to boulder you have to walk a quarter of a mile to get to the next climb, but here it’s all laid out back-to-back like it would be in a gym,” says Ashley Ensign, assistant manager at Horse Pens 40.

The rock formations at Horse Pens 40 pushed up from underground with evidence to suggest the formations were under water for millions of years. This process led to the tops of the rocks being rounder and smoother than most rocks, forming what is known as “slopers” in the bouldering world.

Slopers are more of a challenge to climb than flat top rocks, making Horse Pens 40 an attractive location for bouldering enthusiasts around the world. “We’re known as the sloper top out capital of the world,” says Ensign. “It’s like you’re trying to grip a ball to pull up on the top. It is a lot more challenging because you have to squeeze. That’s what I hear people say every day. You have to grip the sides and hug it.”

On a typical weekend, up to 200 people can be found bouldering on the 40 acres of rock formations at Horse Pens 40, many of them coming from locations thousands of miles away. They have heard about the great climbing and the park and made the trek to Steele, Alabama, to check it out. “Recently we’ve had people from Colorado, Canada and even from Japan. It’s just that well-known within the climbing world.”

For more on St. Clair Outdoors, check out the full special section in this month’s Discover St. Clair. 

David Foote

A master woodcarver at his craft

Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

David Foote peered intently through the lighted magnifier attached to his kitchen table and carefully cut a miniscule section of a duck’s feather with a small knife. It’s that attention to detail that makes the woodcarver’s art come alive, whether he’s recreating feathers, a beak or the shell of a turtle.

“You’ll never find anybody who has put more love and consideration into a piece than I have,” said Foote, who has been carving wildlife – mostly birds – for 38 years. “You’re looking at somebody who no doubt loves what he does.”

Foote’s creations have been featured at the White House, the Smithsonian Institution, the headquarters of the National Audubon Society in Manhattan, and in homes and offices in 11 countries. He’s taking commissions two years out, and his carvings can fetch thousands of dollars. Despite the acclaim, the Pell City artist is always honing his craft.

“I’m just an old country boy,” he said. “I’ve gotten to go to a lot of places and meet a lot of people because of my artwork, but I never feel like I’ve reached a pinnacle. It’s a continual learning process.”

Foote has learned a lot about himself in recent years, largely because of health issues that have plagued him. Ten years ago, while in the hospital with double pneumonia, he had a heart attack at age 47. In 2015, he battled squamous cell cancer in his throat and very nearly lost his life. The experiences helped him grow as a person and an artist.

“I was on life support for three weeks and in intensive care for a few more,” Foote said of his cancer fight. “I left the hospital in a wheelchair because I couldn’t walk. The doctor said, ‘I can’t tell you what to expect, because I’ve never seen anybody come back from the dead.’ I thought I’d never carve again.”

Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Foote thanked God for healing him and for every bird he’d had the opportunity to create. “Even if I didn’t carve another one, that was fine,” he said. “I was at peace with it.”

Slowly but surely, however, he began to regain his strength. As he graduated to a walker and then a cane, he began to think about once again pursuing his passion. “Finally, one day I picked up a knife and took a piece of wood and just started carving,” he said. “I realized I could do a little more each day.” 

Foote, 57, first fell in love with carving at 18. The son of Wayne and Wanda Foote, he grew up on the river with his sister and two brothers, including an identical twin. His mother was a primitive antiques dealer, and his father, who had a long career in the iron industry, also built and restored furniture and log houses.

“My dad taught me a wonderful respect and reverence for wood,” Foote said, adding that he learned the different properties of wood make some types better for creating baskets and others best for making furniture. “He looked at wood like we look at different people.”

Foote also developed his love of nature and wildlife as a child. On fishing trips with his father, he spent more time feeding ducks than he did baiting his hook. “People ask me all the time why birds and why wood,” he said. “I’m a bird person; I notice them everywhere. And I like the unforgiveness of wood. You’ve got one shot. If you take something away, you can’t put it back.”

Not long after graduating from Pell City High School in 1980, Foote stumbled upon a craft show at a Birmingham mall and was mesmerized with one artist’s wood carvings. “We got to talking and he said, ‘You know a lot about wood, and you know a lot about birds. Have you ever thought about carving?’”

The man, Don Mitchell of Leeds, gave him his card and invited the teenager to visit his workshop. “I wanted to go the next day, but I waited two weeks,” Foote said. “He had an old garage he’d converted to a shop. When we walked in that door, that was it. Before I left there, he gave me my first carving knife and said, ‘Go carve a bird and when you get done, I want to see it.’”

Mitchell mentored Foote for about two years before he passed away. Later, Foote read everything he could get his hands on about birds and the art of wood carving, and he said he is largely self-taught. “My mother still has the first bird I ever carved,” he said. “My stuff was very crude back then, but my father gave me some good advice. He told me that there are no straight lines and nothing flat in nature.”

Foote’s art allows him to use another one of his talents and loves – painting. “I have always been artistic,” he said. “I was just always able to draw from first-grade on. The teacher would say, ‘Draw a bird, draw a house,’ and mine always got hung up on the board.”

He took art in middle and high school and said he was blessed to have accomplished artist John Lonergan, who lives in Pell City and is well known for his paintings and pottery, as his teacher. “He kind of took me under his wing,” Foote said.

For much of his career, Foote’s brush strokes provided the exquisite detail on the figures he carved mostly from bass wood. His recovery from cancer and brush with death, however, gave him the incentive he needed to try what he had wanted to do for a long time – take his skill to the next level and provide most of the detail through woodburning and carving rather than just paint.

Foote had experimented with the technique before cancer, but was afraid the extra work and time required would make his pieces too costly. “Everything back then was smooth and slick and didn’t have the intricate details,” Foote said. “When I got through cancer and saw I was going to be able to carve again, my whole attitude changed. I decided I don’t care if anyone buys it. I’m going to do it like I want.”

Foote, who now creates full-size, half-size and miniature works of art mostly from Tupelo gum wood, needn’t have worried. His customers pay anywhere from $1,000 for a small songbird to $5,000 for a full-size waterfowl. “What used to take 20-40 hours to complete now takes 400 or 500, so I’m averaging $8 or $10 an hour,” he said with a laugh. “I do what I do because I love it. I have never seen the face of a wood carver on the cover of a Fortune 500 magazine.”

 

Early career

Foote got his start in craft shows in his 20s and quickly began to win awards. The resident wood carver at Springville’s Homestead Hollow for 20 years, he shared his love with kids, many of whom were inspired to carve their own pieces. Perhaps the biggest surprise of his career, though, was when officials from the Alabama State Council on the Arts asked him to carve a yellowhammer for the White House Christmas tree in 2002. First Lady Laura Bush had selected a theme of “All Creatures Great and Small,” and the tree featured ornaments of each state’s bird handcrafted by local artists. The works were later exhibited at the Smithsonian.

Not long after, Foote was one of two artists worldwide selected to provide sculptures of endangered birds for the Audubon Society headquarters. “I consider that to be my claim to fame because they are the bird people of the world,” said Foote, who carved a pair of Virginia rails. “The other artist was a 10th-generation porcelain bird sculptor from Germany.”

While he appreciates the recognition he has received, Foote mostly enjoys doing what he loves for people who love it.

“It gives me great satisfaction when someone who gets up early every morning and works hard to put food on the table calls and says he wants one of my pieces,” he said. “This is a passion. I don’t know any other way to say it. As long as God gives me the strength in my hands and sight in my eyes, I’ll continue to do it.”