Category: St. Clair People

Dirk Walker Fine Art

Life through the eyes of an artist

Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos by Mackenzie Free

Dirk Walker’s artwork has found homes all over the world. His paintings hang in houses, churches, businesses, corporate headquarters and sports stadiums. They grace walls all over the country and faraway places like Germany, Denmark, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

It all started with his own bare walls.

“I wanted to buy art for our home,” said Walker, who lived in Birmingham at the time. His search took him to the Loretta Goodwin Gallery, and by the time he left, Walker, who worked in banking at the time, couldn’t shake the feeling that he was meant to be an artist.

“I don’t know why I thought I could do it, but something appealed to me about trying to learn how to paint,” said Walker, who has had a studio in downtown Pell City for 11 years.

Fans of his work are awfully glad he did. Walker’s paintings, both oils and watercolors, are known for their bold colors, rich texture and loose brushstrokes. His subject matters are varied: he has collections ranging from landscapes and city scenes to his spiritual series. He also paints sporting and hunting scenes, art focusing on the growing bourbon culture, and whimsical subjects like Santa Claus.

“The variety of things I like to do just keeps me fresh in all of them,” he said. “I’m not doing the same thing all the time – that would drive me bonkers. A lot of people can’t say they love what they do, but I get a lot of gratification from it. Once I get in to doing a painting, everything else just sort of goes away.”

Finding purpose

There were signs early on that Walker had the makings to be a great artist. Growing up in Birmingham, he watched his father dabble in watercolor, and his own high school work caught the attention of his art teacher. She encouraged him to pursue it, but his interest and talent lay dormant for years.

After graduating from Vestavia Hills High School, Walker earned a degree in industrial design at Auburn University and that helped provide a foundation in drawing and perspective. “I did a little design work right out of college, but I had the opportunity to go with the bank, and it was a better option for raising a family at the time,” he said.

Debbie and Dirk Walker in the Pell City studio

After the visit to the gallery, however, Walker decided to give in to the pull. His first painting was a still life. “It was horrible, looking back on it now,” he said with a laugh.

Still, he took it to back to the gallery to be framed, and Loretta Goodwin, who would become a dear friend and mentor, saw something he didn’t. She asked him who had painted the piece. “I said, ‘I did,’ and she said, ‘Can you do it again?’”

It took him about two years to create something he wanted to show her. “It was the most nerve-wracking experience,” said Walker, who started painting with oils. “I circled the block two or three times because I wanted to throw up I was so nervous.”

The first few times he showed Goodwin his work, she told him, “You’re not quite there, keep trying,” Walker remembered. “I’d tuck tail and go back home and stay at it. Eventually, I got to the point where she thought she could do something with it.”

Goodwin was a tremendous influence on Walker. “She loved the arts, she loved local artists, and she did so much to promote the arts in Birmingham. We formed a deep friendship where we talked as much about the business of art as we did the painting process. It instilled in me a love of both.”

She wasn’t his only influence. Hungry to learn, Walker sought guidance and inspiration from Alabama artists John Lonergan, who taught art at Pell City High School for 25 years, and Tom Black, who grew up in Gadsden and lived in Pell City before moving to Arizona. “I would go up to Tom’s studio and just watch him mix color and see what he’d do. I was too nervous to paint around anyone,” he said.

Walker later met and took workshops from David Leffel and Sherrie McGraw, both artists who taught at the Art Students League of New York. His early style was similar to those who had influenced him – “very much the Old Masters, very much the old Renaissance look,” Walker said. “It was the play of shadows and light, light flowing over objects.”

Still working at the bank while pursuing his art, Walker didn’t have the luxury of painting outside during the day and taking advantage of the natural light. “At night, I’d go down to my studio and set up a still life so I could control the light,” he said.

Walker’s work soon grew a following, and in addition to the Loretta Goodwin Gallery, his art has been featured in eight galleries across the country. When his job went away after a bank merger, Walker bought Goodwin’s gallery, which he owned for 20 years before becoming a full-time artist.

Changing times

Walker, who now lives in Cropwell with Debbie, his wife of eight years, has said that painting “is a lifelong struggle, but one that is well worth the journey.” He said he loves the fact that he continues to grow and change as an artist.

“It’s something you never completely learn,” he said. “I think that’s one of the big appeals for me. Forty years later, I’m still learning and experimenting and making mistakes.”

The artist’s spiritual series stems from his personal faith

In fact, Walker said his willingness to continue to explore techniques and subjects and experiment with color has been a big part of his success. “So many artists just kind of get stuck and they wonder why their art isn’t being accepted the way it was maybe years earlier,” he said. “I learned how to watch what people responded to, and through the years, it impacted how my style changed.”

Walker’s portfolio soon expanded to iconic landmarks. His work includes Alabama landmarks like Sloss Furnaces, the Alabama Theatre, Vulcan, the Pell City Depot and the Mobile Bay Lighthouse. He eventually added scenes from Atlanta, as well as places like the Lincoln Memorial, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Eiffel Tower.

“I started off painting very tight, very traditional, and then I wanted to go a little more abstract, a little more impressionistic,” he said, adding that one of the first steps was adding nondescript figures to some of his landmark paintings. “Through the years, I kept pushing in that vein.”

Walker started experimenting with sporting and hunting scenes after his son, Geoffrey, who works in the sporting goods industry, showed his artwork to Kevin and Kathleen Kelly, owners of Kevin’s Fine Outdoor Gear & Apparel. Based in Thomasville, Geogia, it is one of several retailers who represent his work.

“They asked if I ever did hunting scenes, and Geoffrey said, ‘I don’t know; I’ll check,’” Walker said. “He called me that night and said, ‘Dad, I think you need to try doing some hunting scenes.’”

Walker took his son’s advice, and the collection has been wildly popular, thanks in part to his abstract realism style. “I think my style was a really fresh approach,” he said. “Most of the wildlife art you see is very tight, very realistic, very static. Mine was loose and colorful, and I think it caught people at the right time. There’s been a tremendous response to it. It’s just kind of blown my world up.”

Walker, who lived on Logan Martin Lake for years before he and Debbie moved to their gentleman’s farm in Cropwell, has fond memories of fishing and hunting growing up and eventually fishing with his own kids. “We’ve got so many great memories of being on the water,” he said. “That’s one of the really neat things about that genre of work. People connect to it on an emotional level. They want a painting of a dog like they had, or they hunted with their kids. It evokes a lot of memories.”

About four years ago, Kelly approached Walker about doing limited edition prints of some of his paintings. He was reluctant at first, but he realized that people who couldn’t or wouldn’t invest in original art might spend $300 or $400 on a print.

They began offering a line of collector’s closed edition prints, and “we get orders almost every day,” he said. Debbie handles that side of the business, and “it has really broadened our exposure,” Walker said. “Now I get calls to do commissions from all over the country and from other countries, as well.”

Higher calling

Another series that has been personal for Walker is his spiritual collection, which includes depictions of Jesus’ baptism, the Last Supper, the feeding of the 5,000, and the crucifixion. The series was born of his own personal faith and struggles.

Raised in the church, Walker said “if the doors were open, we were there.” As an adult, he went through a period where he floundered a bit, but “something was calling me back to the church.” Not long after he returned, he felt ta strong desire to paint scenes from the Bible.

“Being a person of faith, I think everyone is given gifts on some level, whether it’s music, art, writing, whatever,” he said. “This is something that’s He’s given me, and it’s a way for me to kind of give back and witness a little about my faith. I try to portray something in a way that might cause someone to want to sit and think, and if it also helps someone else find the Lord or deal with issues, that’s a blessing for both parties.”

Walker spent a lot of time on his spiritual art the past two years after being commissioned by Vestavia Hills Methodist Church to paint a series of scenes portraying the life of Christ according to the Gospel of John. Baptist Health also commissioned artwork for all of its hospitals in Alabama.

He also was commissioned to do several large pieces, including a portrayal of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, for collectors in Australia and Germany. The connection was largely the result of his online presence.

“Without the internet, that never would have happened,” he said. “It’s kind of a God thing. He’s using this voice of mine to reach people literally around the globe. It really makes me very humble and proud.”

A new medium

While he has painted with oils for most of his career, Walker was moved to study a new medium about six years ago when he introduced his bourbon series. “Bourbon is such a collectible thing right now, and they’re a lot of fun to do,” he said of the paintings. “Watercolor is sort of the perfect medium for that subject.”

Walker said he strives to create the same kind of look as his oil paintings – the boldness of color, for example – so his approach is a little different than that of traditional watercolorists. While most watercolors tend to have a lot of transparency, he often uses gouache, which is similar to watercolor, but more opaque. The result is paintings with more dimension and vibrancy. “My technique is a little different in that regard,” he said.

The challenge is part of the allure. “Watercolor is a hard medium,” he said. “I enjoy it equally as much as oil, but I’m still kind of learning as I go.”

Walker, his own toughest critic, has a stack of watercolors in his studio that he has discarded. “You’re never completely satisfied no matter how good a painting might turn out,” he said. “I can go back and look at a painting I did yesterday or 10 years ago and see things I wish I’d done differently. Even to this day I’m frustrated by why one painting works and one doesn’t.”

Finding balance

At 70, Walker has no plans to stop painting. “Debbie and I work really hard at this, and I’m up in the studio almost every day,” he said. “I enjoy it, though, and it’s something I hope I can do for years to come.”

Vintage Pell City train depot, an original painting Walker donated to Museum of Pell City as a fundraiser

They do make time for other pursuits, however. Debbie, who traveled the world in her younger years is trying her best to help Walker catch the travel bug, and being with family will always be a priority for both of them.

Their combined family is a big one. Walker has four children, Debbie has two, and there are nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren with another on the way. One of his greatest joys has been creating scenes that mean something to them and will be around for generations.

“I’m so proud that my kids have been able to see me develop, although they give me grief about it,” he said. “If they ever think my ego is out of check, they bring me back down to earth. But it’s so cool because they’ve all told me, ‘Dad, you want to give us something for Christmas, give us a piece of your art.’ That, as a parent, is awesome.”

Chances are, there are a lot more Christmas gifts in their future. Walker, who said he can’t see ever retiring, will never get too far from his red Craftsman tool cabinet that holds brushes and paint and other tools of his trade.

“I once read, ‘Art is a delicate balance between the visual concept and each artist’s technique,’” Walker has said. “After years of chasing that artistic balance, it is the anticipation of the struggle that keeps me coming back to the canvas.” l

Features

Floyd Waites

Born to play the piano … and sing

Story by Joe Whitten
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr. and Submitted Photos

In the words of American Bandstand’s Dick Clark, “Music is the soundtrack of your life,” and that fits Pell City musician Floyd Waites like a well-tailored 5^th Avenue tuxedo.

Born to Edmond and Beatrice Waites in the Glenn City area of Pell City, Floyd was the youngest of their five children – three boys and two girls. This was a loving family overseen by Mrs. Waites after Mr. Waites became an invalid from a stroke.

By his teenage years, Floyd’s siblings had left home, so his mother depended upon him with chores and cleaning. “I was always singing when I was helping around the house,” he recalled. He heard the music coming from the radio, and he knew in his heart that if he had a piano, he could play those songs.

“I went to my mother and said, ‘I want to get a piano.’” He smiled as he told her reply. “She said, ‘Floyd, I can’t get no piano!’ She wasn’t able to buy a piano. But a few months after that, I began to get a small check from Avondale Mills because my daddy had worked there before his stroke.”

Floyd and Marie Knight take a bow at a concert in Paris

With that income, another plan took shape. “I told my mom that I was gonna try to get a piano (with that money),” he reminisced. “There was a piano company in Anniston, Alabama, called Forbes Piano Company. So, someone carried me there, and I looked around and spoke to the man in charge, and he said, ‘I can let you have it for so much,’ – whatever it was priced at that time. And I said, ‘Well, how much will that be a month?’ He told me what it would be and said, ‘Could you pay ten dollars a month?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I can pay ten dollars a month!’ And, so, they brought the piano out to our house.”

Oh, happy day! Now, with the radio on, Floyd could sit at the treasured piano, with his fingertips eagerly searching out the notes and chords and runs of what he heard. He was a natural – born for the piano and music.

He must have played too much Fats Domino or Chubby Checker, because one day his mother said, “Floyd, I don’t want you playing just anything and everything. You’ve got to play for the Lord.” He chuckled at the memory. “I said, ‘Oh, yes, Mama, that’s what I plan to do.”

And he did just that, beginning at Rocky Zion Missionary Baptist Church under the guidance of Rev. Silas Woods, who encouraged him in his playing for the Lord.

Floyd enjoys recalling those early years with Rev. Woods. “We had a Sunday for the young group to sing, and I began playing for them – songs that I knew and could catch onto. Rev. Woods liked for the Junior Choir to go with him when he preached at other churches. And I would go with them and play piano. I was encouraged a lot by Rev. Woods.”

In the spring of 1965, Floyd graduated from St. Clair County Training School, began looking for work and found scant possibilities locally. The Waites’ across-the-road neighbors had moved to New York City, and they encouraged him to come live with them. “You could get a job up here in New York,” they told him. “We could take you to the state unemployment agency, and they will find you a job.” Therefore, with hope in his heart, Floyd boarded a Greyhound bus and headed to the Big Apple – without a clue as to the places God and his piano would take him in the years ahead.

His friends met him at the bus station, took him to their home, and gave him a room until he could find work and rent an apartment of his own.

At the New York Unemployment Office, the interviewer asked him what kind of work he was interested in. and he told them he was a church musician. “They went into the back,” Floyd laughed, “and came back with a uniform, a khaki uniform, and they said, ‘This will fit you very good.’ And I said, ‘What’s that for?’ And they said, ‘This is for you to become a New York City police officer.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no! My Lord, no! That won’t work! I don’t think I could handle anything like that! Don’t you think you could find me something else?’”

So, they sent him to another section where he had a more favorable offer. The lady interviewing him said, “Mr. Waites, we have an opening for a job in the Bronx at a school, and it’s dealing with food service.” This interested him, and the lady’s next question raised his spirits higher, “Can you cook?” Floyd, feeling almost back home in Pell City, replied, “Honey, that’s right down my alley!”

Then she told of a position at the Walton High School, and Floyd said, “I would love to do that because that’s what I studied in school.” He was referring to the St. Clair County Training School where he was more interested in cooking than in farming and had taken Home Economics rather than Vocational Agriculture.

Following the lady’s instructions, he went to Walton High School Monday morning, and after being interviewed there, he was hired. The school system sent him to various training sessions that prepared him for a career in New York City school food services – the job he worked until he retired.

Music opportunities in New York City’s Harlem seemed to find Floyd without his looking for them. The leader of the Jimmy Smith Singers came up to him and asked him if he could sing.

“Oh, yeah, I sing,” Floyd replied, adding, “I’ve got a friend who sings, too.”

“Bring him along,” the leader told him. The friend was one he grew up with in Pell City, and he and Floyd had connected again in New York. The two young men rehearsed and sang with the Jimmy Smith Singers for a while.

“But it was still like something was missing,” he said. His mama’s words, “You’re not gonna play just anything and everything” no doubt hummed in his mind along with sacred memories of Rocky Zion and Rev. Woods.

“The pianist for the Jimmy Smith Singers was playing for a church in my Harlem neighborhood, and he said to me, ‘Floyd, why don’t you come to my church? I play up here at The Gates of Prayer Church. There’s a lady that’s pastor of the church, and her name is Prophetess Dolly Lewis.’ I said, ‘I don’t live too far from there. Maybe I’ll come one Sunday.’”

Not too long after that invitation, Floyd attended The Gates of Prayer Church, and there, by God’s providence, he found his spiritual calling.

Living close to the church, he walked to the service, and as he got closer to the sanctuary, the organ’s chords and crescendos urged him onward. He opened the church door and looking up to the pulpit, he saw a woman dressed in gleaming white looking out over the assembling congregation – Prophetess Dolly Lewis.

Floyd remembers the day. “She looked directly at me and says, ‘Come on in. Go over there and sit down at the piano.’ I must have looked funny, because she said, ‘Yeah, you can play, and you can sing.’ Now, nobody in New York had heard me play, and I wondered, ‘How did this lady know this?’ But I never did ask her.”

From that Sunday, Floyd played piano and sang at The Gates of Prayer Church under the guidance of Prophetess Lewis.

When she went to other cities, he traveled with her to play piano at her preaching services. For one who had never flown, an added excitement was flying to and from these destinations. On these trips, she also held private sessions in her hotel room, and people would be lined up to get messages from her. “A word from the Lord” in today’s Pentecostal parlance.

Prophetess Lewis introduced Floyd to two famous gospel singers – Marie Knight and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. He enjoys recalling those singers. “One Sunday, this lady walked into the church, and everybody looked around. Prophetess Lewis looked at the newcomer and said, ‘Come on up, Marie Knight.’ She was a professional singer, and she would travel all around with this other lady, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Rosetta was an electric guitar player.” He paused, smiling, “Oh, she could lean back on that guitar and play.”

Godmother of Rock ‘N Roll

Rosetta Tharpe was born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, in 1915 to Katie Bell and Willis Atkins. Katie Bell played the mandolin, sang, and preached as a Pentecostal evangelist, according to the online Encyclopedia Britanica. She began playing guitar at age four and at age six she traveled and sang with her mother.

After moving to Chicago, she developed her own guitar style under the influence of Chicago’s blues and jazz musicians. When she moved to New York City in the 1930s, “…She sang traditional gospel songs with contemporary jazz tempos that she played on her electric guitar. With these performances, she introduced gospel into nightclubs and concert venues. Her work influenced early rock and rollers such as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Elvis Presley.” She came to be called the “Godmother of Rock and Roll” and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

The ‘Voice’

Marie Knight, born in Florida in 1920 or 1925, depending on the source, grew up in Newark, New Jersey. According to the online African American Registry (AAREG), Marie started touring in 1939. Sometime in the 1940s, she performed at the Golden Gate Auditorium in Harlem along with Mahalia Jackson.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe attended that concert and “…recognized something special in Marie’s contralto voice.” Rosetta invited Marie to tour with her, and they performed as a team for several years. Sister Rosetta and Marie’s 1947 recording of Up above My Head There’s Music in the Air reached number 6 on the Billboard chart in 1948. Marie sang both Gospel and Rock and Roll, but in her later years sang only Gospel.

When Marie Knight moved back to New York City, she began attending Dolly Lewis’ Gates of Prayer Church, where she organized the choir. Floyd was the pianist and his friend from Pell city the organist. “So, we started playing for Marie,” Floyd smiled. “I’ve got albums that I’m playing for Marie.” He lowered his voice to a baritone before saying, “She had a voice!”

When Marie began planning another tour, she came to Floyd and said, “How would you like to travel to Europe with me?” Floyd laughs as he tells it. “I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that!’ ‘Well, you’re gonna get paid,’ she told me. So, I said, ‘We’ll have to ask Mama.’ That’s what we called Pastor Dolly Lewis.”

Floyd asked Lewis’ advice, and after consideration, she agreed for him to travel with Marie, and assured him, “I’m gonna make sure she pays you, cause she’s kind of close with money.”

Floyd flew with Marie Knight and her entourage to Paris. Landing at the Charles De Gaulle Airport, they were met with the concert tour officials who took them to their lodgings for the night. From Paris they traveled to a city in southern France, whose name Floyd could not recall. From that city, Marie, accompanied by Floyd at the piano, gave concerts in various locations.

Then, it was on to San Sebastian, Spain, for the concluding few weeks of Marie’s tour. Then back to New York City.

“From that day,” Floyd recalls with pleasure, “Marie was happy to have me with her. But she paid,” he laughed. “Those hundred-dollar bills smelled good! And I kept on playing for her.”

Floyd met his future wife, Evelyn Keith, at Gates of Prayer Church. Evelyn grew up in Childersburg, so they had mutual connections back home. She was a singer, so she and Floyd sang together at whichever church he played for. They had one son, Kenny.

Floyd continued playing piano for Prophetess Dolly Lewis at Gates of Prayer Church until she died. When Lewis died, Marie Knight – now singing only Gospel – became pastor of Gates of Prayer. Floyd played piano at the church until Marie died in 2009 from pneumonia complications.

The Waites were on vacation in Alabama when Marie passed, Floyd relates. “They got in contact with me while my wife and I were down here on vacation, and we rushed back to New York.” When asked if he played piano for her service, Floyd responded, “I didn’t do too much playing, but I did sing some of the songs that she had sung, and I had played for her down through the years.”

Floyd also directed the choir in singing one of Marie’s best known Gospel recordings, Didn’t It Rain.

Dual roles

Most of the years that Floyd played piano at Gates of Prayer, he also played for another nearby church, Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church. “I was playing at Hood Memorial all along, because it was on a different time schedule for that church … And it was just around the corner from Gates of Prayer. I played the piano for them for years. And I played organ for them, too, because I had gotten into playing the organ. I played for the choirs – they had a nice senior choir that sang anthems,” Floyd paused, then added, “It was a fairly big church.”

Greater Hood Memorial is historic in Black churches in America. Established in 1824 as Harlem AME Zion, this oldest Black church in Harlem has survived economic downturns (the Great Depression put them in dire financial circumstances), several relocations and a few name changes. But it has survived with Sunday services continuing for 200 years.

Having reached retirement age, Floyd supervised his last school lunch, played his last Sunday service in Harlem, packed his belongings and returned to the place called home, Pell City, Alabama.

Floyd relates how he and Evelyn came to Pell City every year for the month of August to visit relatives and churches in the area. They always visited Coosa Valley Baptist Church in Vincent where Rev. Willie Joe Posey was pastor.

Floyd in France at the Bosendorfer piano

“He would always tell me, when me and my wife would come down from New York, ‘Floyd, come on up here and sing, you and your wife,’ and we’d go up and sing for him. And he’d say, ‘Y’all see that man there? If he ever decides to come outta New York City, I want him right there,’ and he’d point to the piano.”

Today, Floyd is the full-time pianist at Coosa Valley Baptist where Rev. Posey still pastors. However, he ministers alone, for Evelyn died while they were living in New York. “I’ve been with Rev. Posey ever since I came back home to live,” Floyd muses quietly.

“I don’t charge them at the church, but Rev. Posey told me, ‘Oh no, you have to accept something, because people know how good you play and sing, they gonna take you away from us. The church will have to give you something. We don’t want you to leave us.’ So, I said, ‘Well, just sometime give me a love offering, but I don’t expect to be on salary. I don’t charge anything.’ So, every third Sunday, they give me a love offering, and I accept it.”

Rev. Posey has pastored the church for 48 years, and speaks highly of Floyd. “He has proven himself a believer in God and Christ. He’s a faithful man. He’s true to his word. … When he was in New York, I told him when he moved back here, he had a place (at our church), and he’s been with me.” Rev. Posey also noted the beautiful vocal harmony when Floyd and Evelyn sang together at the church.

In the community, Floyd is frequently asked to play for revivals, funerals and special events. At the 2024 Black History event at the Pell City Museum, he was one of the featured musicians of the day.

Many in the community call him “Uncle Floyd,” as did Amelia Beavers when she was asked for a comment. “There are so many things that I could say about Uncle Floyd, but the best thing is that he loves the Lord, and he loves people. He helps throughout his community any way that he can.

“If a loved one dies, he is willing to come to play and sing for the family. He has been a jewel of a friend coming back home to live. He is a beautiful asset to our community. I pray for him many years of serving the Lord and his community. All you have to do is ask and if he does not have another engagement, he is more than willing to accommodate.”

Floyd and Evelyn’s son, Kenny, lives in Childersburg, so Floyd is active in his life and the lives of his four grandchildren – two girls and two boys.

How would he like to be remembered? “I’d just like to be remembered as using the gifts that the Lord has given to me. If I was called to do something, it wasn’t for reimbursement. I thank God for the gift, and I thank Him that He allowed me to use it … It’s a gift that He has given, and I just want to give back.”

As a child and as an adolescent in Pell City, music captivated Floyd Waites and has held him fast all his years. One of the songs he played for Marie Knight was the traditional song Up Above My Head, and the lyrics are true for Floyd –

Up above my head, there’s music in the air
Up above my head there’s music in the air,
Up above my head there’s music in the air,
And I really do know,
Yes I really do know,
There’s a heaven somewhere.

So, Floyd Waites, keep on playing and singing “for the Lord” and sharing your God-given gifts, for without a doubt, you enrich the music life of Pell City and St. Clair County. l

Features

Away from it all

Sharing a passion for healing, hunting

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Mackenzie Free

In an open field of tall grass, mud puddles and woods all around, three dedicated physical therapists meet on a Sunday afternoon miles away from the clinics where they work all week long.

Intertwined with the disciplined calls of hunting dogs, they discover solace in a shared passion. Well beyond their clinic walls, where muscles are mended and limbs rehabilitated, they embark on a journey into the wilderness.

It is here in the shadow of towering pines with five dogs among them, they train for the thrill of the hunt, forging an unspoken bond – not just with nature, but with each other. The scene is a powerful testament to their dual passions.

The sun peeks through a scattering of clouds, illuminating a scene in which they all have played a central role dozens of times before. They’re training for their next big bird hunt.

Their journey together has taken them far away from the St. Clair County clinics of Therapy South, where they work. Their hunts have taken them to Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan and Oklahoma so far.

“We train out here,” said Tyler McGrady, motioning toward the field and woods that are part of the 70 acres he and his family own just north of Pell City. Wild birds are not as plentiful in the South as in other parts of the country, which necessitates the travel. But they don’t seem to mind. It simply brings them closer together.

Tyler readily shares his land with fellow PTs, Cade Mullins and Luke Brasher. Tyler is a partner in Therapy South, and he oversees the clinics in Pell City and Springville, where Mullins and Brasher work.

They joke that bird hunting isn’t a prerequisite for getting hired, it just happened that they all share the same after-hours sport.

On the job, you’ll find them bantering back and forth as they apply their healing touch to patients. The camaraderie is infectious. In an instant, patients join in the conversations about dogs, hunting and the great outdoors, perhaps helping them forget the pain and rise above their own physical limits, if only for a moment.

Tyler calls it “good-spirited ribbing.” A former baseball player at Jacksonville State University, he noted that all three of them are former college athletes and “too much time in the locker room” may be the catalyst for their approach in the clinic and on the hunt.

Luke, who played football at UAB, agreed. “We miss the time spent with teammates,” he said. Mullins played baseball at Delta State. “It gives us a deeper sense of teamwork,” added Tyler.

Once on the hunt, the teamwork becomes man and dog. The pride in each of their ‘best friends’ is evident. Tyler’s Maverick and Charlie are German Short Haired Pointers, whose grace and ability blend perfectly in pointing or hunting quail.

Cade’s Covey and Coosa are Wire Haired Pointing Griffons, whose loping gallop through a mud puddle or two, seems natural for a breed with an insular coat and webbed toes. Griffons love the water, and on this day, Covey’s penchant for puddles shows.

The pup of the bunch, an English Setter named Duke, belongs to Luke, who he is training himself. As he watches Duke circling through the tall grass – nose up to catch a whiff of a downed bird – Luke’s watchful eye has the noticeable glint of a proud Papa. After all, their dogs are family.

“My wife loves dogs,” Cade said. “They sleep in the bed with us.”

Tyler’s wife is “super understanding” about his past time, he said, and they’ve just added to their brood – a pup named Goose. His daughters, Brooke and Maggie, make it a family affair. They’ve developed a passion for assisting in training the dogs.

Luke’s wife didn’t really want a dog, he said. “Now she takes 20 pictures a day of him because she loves him that much.”

The three of them muse about the rewards reaped from their training and their hunts. “It’s your relationship with your dog. Your dog is your best friend,” said Tyler. “When you see what they were born and bred to do, when it all comes together in the field, it’s pretty cool to watch.” You’re able to turn off the outside world. “You’re in the prairie in the middle of nowhere with your dog.”

Cade loves “getting out and enjoying creation. Every time you go out, you pick something that stands out – a dog pointing – it points back to creation, this awesome place created for us.”

“It’s fun walking through the Lord’s creation,” said Luke. “It’s cool to see something that is innate in their nature – pointing and finding a bird.”

It allows you to become “disconnected from the world,” Tyler concluded.

They all have a healthy respect for Tyler’s dog, Maverick. Describing him as a stud with a championship bloodline, Luke noted, “If Maverick doesn’t point, there’s not a bird there. He’s pretty much a sure shot.”

How did they arrive at this place of solace and excitement entwined?

Tyler already had a dog when he got into bird hunting, encouraged by another physical therapist, Daniel Eck, who works in Therapy South’s Florence clinic. The two had played ball together in college. He’s been hunting ever since.

Cade grew up deer and turkey hunting on the family farm near Lake Martin. “I got tired of picking up birds and said, ‘Let’s get dogs and do this.’ ”

For Luke, the fascination began when he was 9. A neighbor had Brittany and Boykin Spaniels involved in field trials, and he would take him along. He strayed away from the sport for years, but Cade and Tyler “nagged that I needed a bird dog. It was the only way to be in the crew. So, I gave into peer pressure,” he joked, “but it was worth it.”

It’s all about the relationship with the dog and the excitement of anticipating what is to come, Tyler explained. In a world of otherwise instant information, “It’s the hope of what could be. You never know what the difference is going to be.”

Features

Heritage Quilts

180-year-old cloth square replicated in acrylics for
barn display

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Mandy Baughn

When Mike Jones’ great-great grandmother, Euphrasia Hannah Gibson, died in 1874, she left a box of quilt squares that she had intended to sew together. She probably had no idea those squares would someday hang in the homes of future generations, much less be replicated on wood and hung on a barn in Cropwell.

“My grandmother had the box of quilt squares, and when she died 15-20 years ago, her daughters rediscovered them when they cleaned out her house,” says Jones. “They got together and passed them out to each of the 14 cousins. So, we have had them that long. My daughter, Kristina Alexander, has one, too. I’m not sure who has the rest of that box of squares.”

Holding their quilt squares in front of the Jones barn are cousins Joy Sanford, Kathy Callahan (standing in for husband Jimmy), Walter Jones, Mike Jones, Michelle Dowler (for her mom, Gayle Boone), Karen Ragsdale, Christy Robbins (for her dad, Don Callahan, deceased), Carol Tucker, and Quinn Stewart (second oldest cousin at 83)

Kristina’s daughter, Jules, was 16 when she translated her 4th-great-grandmother’s quilt piece to a wooden board during the summer of 2023. Jules’ mom did the math and figured out how to enlarge the quilt block pattern to scale for a 6-foot-2.5-inch square piece of plywood that Mike cut for that purpose.

She put a screw in the center of the board and tied a string to it to make a compass, then used geometry to figure out the ratios. That was after Mike had painted three layers of a white base coat onto the board. Jules used a pencil to draw the design, a Dresden Plate with a star in the center and some extra colors in the corners.

“It took me a good while, because I had lots of coats to do,” says Jules. “I had to tape off each section to get clean lines. My grandfather picked the colors. He wanted something fall but bright and festive.”

Jules has been involved in art a long time, and usually prefers working with watercolors. She has painted stationery for friends and family, and helped groups from her church, Pell City United Methodist, to paint murals in a local private high school. “So, when my grandfather asked me to do this job, I was excited.”

The quilt squares are about 180 years old, according to Mike’s wife, Sandra. “The blocks were given to all the cousins in Mike’s generation.”

On Aug. 31, most of those 14 cousins gathered at the Jones House to celebrate Labor Day and compare their quilt squares. Each one features the same Dresden Plate design, but in a different color palette. Some have framed theirs, others haven’t yet. Each is proud of the heritage, though.

The Joneses hope their barn quilt will become a part of the Alabama Barn Quilt Trail. An agricultural tourism project, the Trail is designed to promote travel and community pride by encouraging the public to explore the state’s roads, farms, businesses and historic towns, according to its website. “Barn Quilts are part of what has become known as ‘The American Quilt Trail Movement,’ featuring colorful quilt squares painted on barns and buildings throughout North America,” the site states. “It is one of the fastest-growing grassroots public art movements in the United States. Tourists come to discover the quilt squares on thousands of barns and buildings scattered along driving trails throughout the nation.”

A Jones Family scrapbook displays a photo of Euphrasia Hannah Gibson (woman on right-hand page), among other family members

Regina Painter founded the Alabama Barn Quilt Trail in 2015, primarily in five northwestern counties of the state because of grant money from the Northwest Alabama Resource Conservation & Development Council. “We are very concentrated in north Alabama, but now have grant money from the Alabama State Council on the Arts to cover the entire state,” she says.

A fabric quilter herself, Painter saw her first barn quilt at a quilt show in Tennessee several years ago. “I fell in love with the idea and wanted to see them in Alabama. So, I started the Alabama Barn Quilt Trail with assistance from several groups and individuals.”

By registering with the Trail, a person encourages agritourism and promotes small communities across the state as visitors check out the beautiful quilt blocks and their settings, Painter says. “We promote the Trail with brochures, public presentations, social media and various television and printed publications.”

The organization will help anyone pick out a design and colors, and will register a barn quilt for the trail after forms available on the site are filled out and turned in. (See alabamabarnquilttrail.org). If, like the Joneses and at least half a dozen others in St. Clair County, you have already painted your quilt, you can still get it added to the trail. Interested barn owners may contact the organization by email (alabamabarnquilts@gmail.com)

According to the website, the benefits to communities and their small businesses include:

Providing an economic benefit from tourism for businesses and farms on the Quilt Trail
Promoting preservation of our historic barns
Honoring the agricultural roots of the State of Alabama
Creating public art and paying tribute to the uniquely American history of beautiful quilts.

The trail is supported by the Alabama State Council on the Arts, ALFA and the Alabama Farmers Federation.

Of the 204 quilts on the state trail, seven are located in St. Clair County. In some cases there may be more than one wooden quilt registered. The Ashville House of Quilts in downtown Ashville, for example, has three designs. Greensport Marina has one, and one of the marina owners, Beth Evans Smith, has three others registered at various buildings on Greensport Road. The Trousdale Family has three blocks at 22630 U.S. Hwy. 411 in Ashville.

A barn quilt at 4522 County Road 22 is registered to Mark and Emily Taylor of Ashville. But it actually belongs to Emma Bean, the granddaughter of Emily’s deceased sister and husband, Doris and Billy Bean.

Painted in 2022, Grandmother’s Flower Garden is the name of Emma’s quilt square. “This was her grandparents’ barn,” says Mark. “An Alabama Barn Quilt Trail crew drew the quilt pattern.” Father and daughter, Nathan and Emma Bean, along with other volunteers, painted it. The barn and the land it’s on was passed down to Emma from her grandparents.

“We have some at my business, Taylor Fence, at 4097 County Road 22, and at our home, 9463 County Road 31, both in Ashville, but they are not registered on the Alabama trail,” Mark says.

Quilter Joyce Foster, who lives on Belvedere Drive in Ashville, doesn’t have a barn and didn’t fancy mounting a large board on her garage, so she attached her 10-by-10-inch quilt square to her mailbox post. “It’s no particular design,” she says. “I just drew some lines on a piece of plywood and filled them in, then painted it. I think that was about four years ago.”

Keep on tickin’

Pell City man repairs clocks, jewelry

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Graham Hadley

James Denney had been a jewelry repairman for six years when a woman brought him an antique Ansonia clock. Probably made in the late 1800s or early 1900s, it had not run in 40 years.

“I know you do jewelry repairs, think you can do clocks?,” she asked Denney. He could tell her heart was in it, so he took a stab at it.

“Turns out all it needed was cleaning and oiling,” he says. “She had tears in her eyes when she picked it up. That got me started.”

Denney had gone to school to learn jewelry repairing, but there are no such schools for repairing clocks. So, he bought a series of video tapes on the subject and began tinkering with grandfather clocks and grandmother clocks, the latter being smaller versions of the former. And yes, there are (even smaller) granddaughter clocks, too, but he hasn’t serviced any of those. He also works on mantel and wall clocks.

James Denney heating up a piece of jewelry he made

The first clock that he actually repaired came back to him, but he got it right the second go-round. “It’s very rare that someone doesn’t say how happy they are with my being here because it’s so hard to find a clock man,” Denney says.

Even though self-taught, he does have a filial background to draw from. His step-grandfather, Kirk E. Ross, ran Ross’ Jewelry in downtown Pell City in the 1960s. “I watched him my whole life,” Denney says. “Also, my dad was a jeweler for about five or six years, and an uncle had a jewelry shop in Florence.”

His business name, X-Dross Jewelry & Clock Repair, is a blend of names and a Biblical meaning. “My dad’s name was Denney, and his stepfather was named Ross,” he explains. “I wanted to blend my step-granddad’s name with mine, hence Dross. Then I found that word in the Bible, in Exodus, where God describes his people as having become ‘dross,’ meaning having impurity or foreign matter to them. In other words, slag. So, I added an ‘X’ to indicate ‘no dross,’ because it was Xed out.”

His shop is on the second floor in a building that houses several shops at 1600 Martin Street, just off US 231. His wife, Crystal, has a specialty dog boutique, Jazz’m Up Pet Salon, on the first floor. The front room of X-Dross is both the entry area and his clock workshop. It’s decorated with plants, clocks and paintings of Jesus, while a Bible can often be found on the arm of a comfy sofa.

A back room serves as a place for jewelry repair and includes a high-speed steamer for cleaning small items, a small Crockpot for acid dips, and an ultra-sonic jewelry cleaner. His watch and jewelry lathe is in his storage room, and there’s another storage room that he hopes to turn into a display area some day. He’s buying a new lathe for clock works because bigger gears require bigger tools.

If you’re in the shop at the top of the hour, you’ll hear five of his own clocks chime, but not all at once. He set them to chime in succession. At home, he has two clocks, one a grandfather that’s a “regulator” clock (powered by a weighted and geared mechanism). He changed out the handles with drawer knobs, painted the case and used adhesive blue varnish over the paint, and replaced its Korean-style motor with a German movement by Hermle.

He has serviced many brands of antique clocks, including a green mantel clock with Greek columns on each side of the clock face that was manufactured by the Sessions Clock Company.

He once took in a Black Forest cuckoo clock that had a “messed up” music box. He replaced one mechanism on it. He’s working on an Hermle mantel clock for a friend. “It probably has a bent timing arbor,” Denney says.

He restored the body of a crystal-enclosed mantel clock from the late 1700s or early 1800s by sanding it with fine sandpaper and steel wool, then buffing it.

Grandfather clocks are his favorites to work on because they are bigger, so it’s much easier to see the components. “I really enjoy restoring the cases as well as the workings,” he says. “The other day, a man brought me a Waterbury Clock Company clock from an old fire station that had caught on fire. Half the gears were bent. I bent them back, and it worked fine.”

The toughest he’s ever worked on was a Herschede brand, a grandfather clock with a tube in back and a big hammer that hits on the hour and plays music. “The pendulum was not in sync with the gears, but I fixed it,” he says. “I had to readjust the pendulum’s swing and adjust the verge (tick-tock motion) mechanism.”

Another man brought in an Ingraham clock, and Denney replaced the motor, because the man was in a hurry and did not have time to wait for him to fix the movement. “Every job finished brings me a sense of accomplishment,” Denney says.

He has also repaired small timepieces, like a clock face in a tiny figure in the shape of a teapot. That one simply needed its hands bent and a new battery. “I work on all types of clocks now, but eventually will give up battery-powered ones,” he says.

So, what are the requirements for what he does? “Patience and finesse,” he says. “I don’t get bored with my work, and I have an eye for details.’

Showing how the hammers in a chime mechanism are timed

A favorite aspect of his business is making house calls. That’s right, this clock repairman will go to your house to service your clocks. “I like to service clocks in people’s houses because I like meeting people,” he explains. “Often, all the clock needs is a slight adjustment, but they want to keep their clocks going so I will oil them. I use a synthetic oil because it cleans and lubes without leaving a residue to build up, the way natural oil does.”

Recently, Denney has started “messing around” with gold plating on jewelry. He picks up a chain with an initial pendant on it, explaining, “That one didn’t turn out as shiny as I wanted.” He’s doing it for a friend. He can make gold or silver rings using a mold made of cuttlefish bone. “Each mold can only be used once because the hot metal burns it,” he says.

As for watches, their seals tend to dry rot and break, or corrosion can set in, or the hands come loose. Sometimes, the numbers on a watch face come off. But he can handle any of those problems. Ironically, there’s a wooden puzzle hanging on one wall of his shop that functions as a clock … when it works. That makes for an interesting conversation with a clock repairman.Goforth, Mayor Thomas, Lucy Cleaver, Lee Jeffrey, Mandi Rae Trot, Candice Hill, Blair Goodgame and Morrison; Springville Parks and Rec Board; bands and individual musicians who played on the side stage and vendors.

Features

Rosie the Riveter

Springville’s Own Gatha Harvey

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted Photos

It was 2011 when retired Pell City educator Deanna Lawley offered an idea to help boost the Pell City Schools Educational Foundation’s On Dec. 8, 1941, at 12:30 Eastern Standard Time, a solemn silence settled over the nation as stunned citizens heard President Franklin Rosevelt over the radio intone these stark words: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a day which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

Six and a half minutes later, President Rosevelt ended his address: “I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7^th,1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

Gatha Harvey of Springville, Alabama, remembers how she learned of the Pearl Harbor attack. “We had been up to my sister’s and were on our way home,” she recounted. “Daddy always liked to have music, so he had the radio on, and they interrupted the program and told about Pearl Harbor being bombed.”

Americans were galvanized toward winning this war. Scores of youths dropped out of high school to join the military. Women became part of the war effort by working jobs previously occupied by men now fighting in various parts of the world.

Gatha would soon become part of the women’s work force.

From Hartwell to Marietta, Georgia

Graduating high school in 1944 at age 17, she wanted a job, but Hartwell offered very few choices – working in a sewing factory or clerking in a department store. Not an exciting outlook for her.

Then her aunt and uncle came from Marietta for a visit one weekend. Gatha recalls the day. “Daddy’s sister, Ruth, and her husband were working in the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, Georgia. They made B-29 planes. She said, ‘Why don’t you come to Atlanta with us?’ ” And I said, ‘I don’t know if Daddy would let me go that far away.’ ” However, Ruth did the asking, and Gatha’s daddy did indeed let her go with them.

At Bell Bomber Plant, Ruth took Gatha to the employment office, and they hired her. “I started working on airplane wings, bucking rivets,” Gatha smiled. An online article, Buck Riveting Basics, explains the process. “A bucked rivet is a round fastener that attaches two or more pieces of metal together. The rivet is driven by a rivet gun (a specialized pneumatic hammer) with an attached rivet set (strike surface) shaped to match the rounded shape of the manufactured head of the rivet. During the process, the tail of the rivet is backed up by a bucking bar that acts as an anvil while the rivet gun and set are repeatedly striking the head. As the rivets are driven, the tail (blunt end) of the rivet is transformed into a flat mushroom called a ‘shop head.’ ” So, in June 1944, Gatha officially became a Rosie the Riveter – a group still famous.

“The first day I was working,” Gatha reminisced, “I’ll bet I had gone that far (measures about two or three feet with her hands), and the inspector came to check my work. He was a young man, and he marked every one of my rivets, and I had to take ‘em all out. And I thought, ‘Boy, you sure are mean.’ Every one of my rivets had to come out because they were too close to the edge. So, I got ‘em all put in, and got ‘em right, and kept going. If we hadn’t got ‘em out, that plane could have come apart when it got in the air.”

The inspector, Alfred Harvey, was not mean after all, because four months later, on Oct. 21, 1944, he and Gatha White were married – a marriage that lasted 47 and a half years until Alfred’s death in 1992.

In January 1945, expecting their first baby, James Richard, Alfred and Gatha quit their jobs at Bell Bomber and moved to Birmingham. Alfred worked for a while in an airplane plant, then drove a truck. His sister who worked in the Tax Assessor’s office and suggested that if he wanted to drive a truck, he should take the Civil Service Test and work for the city of Birmingham. He took the test, passed it, was hired and worked 29 years for the city.

“We had a good life,” Gatha reflected. “On Oct. 28, 1945, my son Jimmy Harvey was born., and seven years later my daughter, Alice Faye Harvey Stone was born. We weren’t rich, but we had a good life.”

Growing up

In the summer of 1926, a heatwave skewered Georgia, and on the day Gatha White was born, July 21, the sun blazed over the horizon and sizzled the thermometer up to 108 degrees at Reed Creek community, her birthplace. It’s still the record heat today.

The fifth of nine children born to Judge Reese White and his wife, Arlie Maude Brown White, Gatha talked of her early years. “My daddy was a farmer. He raised corn, cotton and vegetable gardens.” All farm family children worked a farm thinning corn, chopping cotton, weeding the vegetable garden, gathering the vegetables – whatever the season required. “There were nine of us,” Gatha reminisced, “and as we got big enough to work, we all worked in the field.”

When the cotton matured, they helped with the harvest. “We would get out of school in September for six weeks to pick cotton,” Gatha recalled. This discontinuing of school for several weeks, called “getting out for cotton picking,” was a common practice in Southern states.

“We had a good time,” Gatha smiled, recalling home and her brothers and sisters. “On Sunday, my daddy would hitch up the mules to the wagon, and we’d go to church. And if there were any neighbors that didn’t have a way, he’d take them with us in the wagon.” The family mostly attended the Baptist church, but many churches had preaching only once a month, so the family attended whichever denomination was having church on Sunday.

Remembering those long ago preachers, Gatha reflected, “Sometimes they would pay the minister with chickens. Vegetables. They seldom got much money.”

She reminisced about school. “We went to a country school and rode the bus at Reed Creek. Then when we moved to Hartwell, Georgia, we’d walk to school. We all graduated high school.”

Gatha’s favorite subject in school was cooking class. “I used to watch my mamma cook, but she wouldn’t let me cook, so I would watch her. She could make some of the best biscuits.”

This recollection led to more food memories. “We’d go to the garden and pick beans, she’d can ’em. Pick peas, she’d can ‘em. Tomatoes, she’d can. Apples, she would dry. She had a frame that she’d put the sheets on, and we’d peel the apples and peaches, and she’d put ‘em out there to dry, and we’d have dried apple pies. You had to cover them up to keep the flies off.

“And we had homemade ice cream. And we made lemonade – got lemons and made it in a tub. We had a good life,” she smiled.

The family raised their own beef and pork. When hog killing time came, nothing was wasted. “Mamma and Daddy would cut pork chops, and they cured the hams with salt. We used everything but the chitlins,” Gatha recollected. “Mamma fried the sausage and put it in quart jars and canned it. She made souse meat.”

Souse meat, sometimes called hog’s head cheese, was the forerunner of sandwich lunchmeat. Gatha tells how her mother made it. “She’d boil the head and the pigs’ feet and get all the meat off that. And she put other stuff in it and she’d scrunge (squeeze) it up and put it in a big pan and put a lid on it and pressed it down to get all the grease out of it. It’s really good.”

Old recipes add various spices – pepper (black and red), sage, garlic, cloves and pickling spices. Old directions also recommended putting the souse meat in the smokehouse for a while before serving it.

Printed flour sacks and feed sacks were a godsend during lean economic days. Gatha recalled “Mamma would show daddy the sack design that she wanted him to get at the store, and when she got enough of the same design, she made our dresses. I never had a bought dress.”

From Birmingham to Springville

Gatha’s memories returned to her married life and living in Birmingham. “We lived in Woodlawn. We rented a house that had an apartment, and Alfred’s mother and daddy moved into the apartment. I cooked on Sunday to have ready when they come home from church, and my father-in-law liked pot liquor (turnip greens broth) with cornbread.”

After Alfred’s father died, the Harveys bought a house in Center Point and Alfred’s mother, who used a wheelchair, reluctantly moved with them. “She knew she was gonna have just one room and use of the house. Well, when all the neighbors made her welcomed, she was satisfied. She lived with us until ’74.”

After that, she moved in with her daughter for a while, and then into a nursing home. “She was a good lady. And she always said, ‘I hope you will have a daughter-in-law that’s as good to you, as you are to me.’ And if she was living, she’d know now that I did.”

Gatha’s eyes twinkled as she said, “My mother-in-law had a cough, and one of her sons, Ralph, was a policeman on the Birmingham police force. So, he brought her a pint. She mixed it with lemon and honey – made her a toddy. Well, that went on for about a month, and she said, ‘Ralph, bring me another pint of whiskey. I’m out.’ He said, ‘Mamma, you didn’t drink all that!?” Her reply was, ‘A little bit at a time,’ then added with justification, ‘Well, I had a cough.’ “So, he brought her another pint.”

Alfred had always wanted to travel, so prior to retiring, he had purchased a motorhome for traveling days to come. When he retired, they sold their home and headed out in the motorhome.

Their son, Jimmy, and his wife, Betty, had Springville property where Jimmy built a carport high enough for them to pull the motorhome under and a porch for them to step out onto when it was parked. He also put in a water hookup and installed a septic tank. They would come back from a trip and be at home in Springville in the motorhome until the next excursion.

Alfred and Gatha’s days of travel were cut short by Alfred’s emphysema. They returned from a Florida trip, and the drive home was difficult for Alfred. He had a doctor’s appointment but was so weak that Gatha drove him. His doctor put him in the hospital where he stayed 10 days, during which time he was put on oxygen. Gatha brought him home, where he died April 8, 1992.

Gatha kept active, and her four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and her one great-great-grandchild, have all been blessed by her love and concern for them, for she speaks of them with smiles on her face. Each one has received a quilt – all hand-stitched and hand-quilted – with love in every stitch. Granddaughter Sonya’s quilt has scraps of dresses Gatha made for her when she was small. Grandson Richard commented on her grandmothering: “She took care of my sister and me when we were growing up, and we developed a special relationship with her. She was stern, but she was gentle. We loved her to pieces.”

The family also enjoys her cooking. At Christmas time, she always makes the dressing. She makes banana nut bread for granddaughter Sonya, her daughter-in-law Betty and herself. Grandson Richard Harvey – Springville’s Fire Chief – gets his favorite poundcake. Betty relates how “Gatha makes a buttermilk poundcake – it was my mother’s recipe – and she’s got the Springville Fire Department spoiled with it.”

Asked about the poundcake, Richard responded, “Oh, her poundcake. Yeah, she makes probably the best poundcake that’s ever been. But it’s not just me; it’s the entire Fire Station. The guys love it when she makes us poundcake.” Richard allows that the cake is especially delicious with strawberries and whipped cream.

Springville First Baptist Church

When the Harveys began parking their motorhome in Springville, Mrs. Barfield, their neighbor across the road, invited Gatha to go with her to church at Springville First Baptist Church where she was a member. Gatha accepted and went with her when she and Alfred would be in town between travels.

After Alfred passed, she became an active member of the church and was involved in its ministries – especially Sunday school and Saints Alive, the senior citizens group at the church. For Saints Alive, Gatha helped two directors, Geniva DuPre Smith and Linda Lee, by calling members to remind them of meetings or trips planned for the group.

At a recent Saints Alive lunch meeting, attendees sat by birth month at round tables, and Gatha lunched with five men who ranged in age from mid-60s to an 89-year-old. At the end of the meal, she got the group’s attention and said, “I’d like to say how much I have enjoyed dining with these younger men.” This is typical Gatha humor, as her neighbor, Dennis Jones, recently affirmed by telling, “Every time the TV says, ‘Check on the elderly,’ Gatha calls and checks on me – even though I’m 25 years younger.”

Today Gatha is the First Baptist church-member who has accumulated the most years of living. Until two years ago, she drove herself to church. Now Betty brings her.

At 97 / 98, Gatha rarely ever misses a Sunday school class or worship service. Her Sunday school teacher, Beverly Bullock, remarked, “Gatha Harvey is an example of a quiet soul who speaks loudly about her Lord and makes an effort to be in God’s house every Sunday.”

Tom Brokaw called the WWII era the “greatest generation,” and Eleanor Roosevelt said of the women of her day: “A woman is like a teabag, you don’t know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”

Having lived almost 100 years, whatever “hot water times” Gatha has experienced has made her stronger. Whether the hot water of having to remove her first row of rivets or the twists and turns of living almost a hundred years, Gatha exemplified the strength Eleanor Roosevelt acknowledged.

Gatha’s grandson Richard Harvey agreed. “My grandfather treated her like an angel – he did everything for her, but at the same time she did everything for him. She was the classic housewife of that generation. Then when he passed, she was pretty much on her own and had to take care of herself. She had never driven when he passed, so at 65 she got her driver’s license.” He paused, then added, “She was never afraid.”

Whether Gatha Harvey is patriotic Rosie the Riveter, faithful wife, well-loved mother-in-law, or loving grandmother, she is an inspiration to all who know her, for she is an example of a life well-lived.

Richard recently told of his grandmother’s 90^th birthday. “I said, ‘Grandma, what’s something you’ve never done?’ And she said, “I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, and I’ve never flown in a plane.’ So, for her 90^th birthday, I put her on the back of my motorcycle and drove up to Ashville to a friend who had a plane. We put her in the plane, and he flew her all over St. Clair County.”

In anticipation of upcoming birthdays, Richard says he keeps asking her, “When are we gonna jump out of that plane?” Her answer so far has been, “I don’t think I’m gonna do that.”

How about it, Gatha. Is that water really too hot?