A decoration for the nation

Pell City artist paints ornament for
national Christmas tree display

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.
Submitted photos

When the 95th annual National Christmas Tree Lighting display opened in Washington, D.C., in December, a little piece of Pell City was among the decorations.

That is because local artist Buddy Spradley had painted one of the ornaments.

Spradley’s work and that of 13 other artists from North and Central Alabama were selected to help decorate the state’s tree in President’s Park. According to the National Park Service, 56 Christmas trees – one for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories – showed their splendor in President’s Park from Dec. 1, 2017, through Jan. 1, 2018.

The effort to provide the dozen ornaments for the Alabama tree was coordinated by the Alabama State Council on the Arts and locally by Heritage Hall Museum in Talladega.

“It is our honor to decorate our home state tree and help the nation celebrate the holidays in one of our most recognizable parks,” said Valerie White, director of Heritage Hall Museum. “We are all excited to be part of the ‘America Celebrates’ display. It gives us an opportunity to show our pride in our state’s artistic talent, stunning natural wonders and vibrant cultural heritage.”

Spradley was excited too, in addition to “speechless, nervous, … thankful, honored.” He said he is “proud to represent Alabama to the U.S. in that way, through art.”

Spradley’s ornament depicts two waterfalls at Little River Canyon in Fort Payne. He chose Grace Falls as the main focus, with another Little River waterfall on the opposite side of the ornament.

Little River Canyon “has a special feeling to me,” he said. “(I’ve) always had a personal closeness to that area.”

Many times through the years, he has gone to Little River Canyon with his dad, nationally known watercolor artist Wayne Spradley of Pell City. The elder Spradley has painted Grace Falls in the past, a fact that influenced his son’s decision to feature it on the ornament.

“Now, he and I both have done Grace Falls,” said Buddy Spradley.

Although Spradley had not previously painted a spherical piece, he was able to complete the acrylic project in about two weeks during September 2017. He did confess, however, that holding the ornament and painting it at the same time presented quite a challenge. But duct tape saved the day. Spradley found that the center hole of a roll of duct tape made the perfect cradle for holding the ornament steady while he painted on it.

 

An artist’s early start

Spradley’s chance to help decorate a national Christmas tree through art really can be traced back 45 years when he won his first art competition at age 8. That piece was an abstract.

He grew up around art, watching his dad create wildlife scenes and landscapes that would gain national acclaim. In the early 1980s, his dad produced the artwork for the Alabama Waterfowl Stamp.

After Buddy Spradley graduated from Pell City High School, he put art aside and instead earned a mortuary science and forensics degree. For eight years, he worked at Kilgroe Funeral Home, with his uncle and aunt, Sonny (now deceased) and Jane Kilgroe. From the couple, Spradley learned much about respecting, serving and helping people. “That job did teach me compassion,” he said.

It was also during those years that he felt a calling to teach. To prepare for the career change, he studied graphic art and anthropology at Jacksonville State University, and then art education at the University of Alabama.

For two years in Anniston, followed by 18-plus years in Pell City Schools, Spradley taught art to “thousands of kids.”

During the years of teaching, his art mostly consisted of pieces he painted as classroom demonstrations for the students. His focus was on educating and encouraging his students, rather than producing his own pieces.

He called the job a “blessing,” saying he went to school each day with a smile and left with a smile. The time in between was spent trying to instill in every child a sense of success and accomplishment.

Dr. Micheal Barber, superintendent of Pell City Schools, described Spradley as a “wonderful artist and wonderful teacher. … He brings life into art.”

Barber said Spradley incorporated into art class what the students were learning in history, science and other subjects.

Spradley is retired from the classroom now and greatly misses teaching students. He still feels a deep sense of responsibility toward them.

“Teaching school was such an important, big part of my life. … You’ve got to behave yourself and be a good role model … in and out of school,” Spradley said. “Even though I’m retired, I feel like I’m still responsible for making a good impression.”

The Christmas tree in his living room at the time of Discover’s visit with Spradley gave evidence of the impact he has had upon many young lives. Decorations given by past students adorned the tree from top to bottom.

It is not uncommon for former students who are now adults to tell him, “I’ve still got the Christmas tree we did in art, and I put it up on the mantle every year.”

His own heritage of art has become one of his treasures. In fact, the art table he uses is the very first one that his father had … back in 1954. He also has, as a keepsake, a sizable stack of his dad’s art demonstration pieces.

Prior to retirement, Spradley’s life journey already had taken several significant turns. Among them were an emergency triple bypass at age 38 and the death of his mother, Pat, from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Then, in September 2015, his journey took a path that made retiring necessary. Spradley was told he had gastric and esophageal cancer that was stage 3 – bordering on stage 4.

“I had less than a 9 percent chance of survival,” Spradley said. “… But I knew I was (going to make it). … Thank God, I had some of the most professional, caring doctors. They saved my life. My surgeon prayed with me before surgery. … They cared about my wellbeing and I am so thankful for that. I never would have survived without my family and my friends. Never.”

Spradley said his dad had always been “my rock,” but was even more so during that time. Also, aunts Jane Kilgroe and Jean Phillips were very caring and continue to be.

The chemotherapy treatment, which lasted a year, caused nausea, fatigue, neuropathy in his hands and loss of appetite. The neuropathy prevented Spradley from holding a paintbrush.

His determined dad devised a means for his son to return to painting. It involved inserting the brush handle into a small tube and taping the tube to his son’s finger. With such a setup, Buddy Spradley did not have to hold the brush, he only had to point his finger to paint.

It worked well and Buddy Spradley again was creating wildlife and landscape scenes and an occasional abstract. Painting, he discovered, helped to overcome the neuropathy.

On one particular day during the battle with cancer, Spradley stood at his kitchen window, looked out and prayed. He said he was about to start the next part of his life and asked God what He wanted Spradley to do.

Very soon, things started happening.

Almost overnight, Spradley felt a stronger commitment to art. He became “completely engulfed in my painting.”

Also, his skill reached a new level.

Wayne Spradley noticed a marked difference in his son’s artwork, especially in draftsmanship and execution. He saw his son’s abilities draw ever so close to perfection.

Then, came the invitation for Buddy Spradley to paint an ornament for a Christmas tree in the nation’s capitol.

“It was so unexpected,” Spradley said. “And it all goes back to when I was standing in that window and was asking for guidance for the second half of my life.” When God opens doors, Spradley said, “(you get) to do things you didn’t think you could do.”

Wayne Spradley was thrilled that his son was chosen for the honor. “I was proud of him,” he said. “I encouraged him as much as I could.”

Buddy Spradley could also imagine his mom’s voice telling him she is proud of him, too, just as she had done so often during his life.

In early 2018, Spradley embarked on another project – that of submitting an entry to the Alabama Waterfowl Stamp art contest. The painting he has in mind to do will be painstaking, considering that each feather of the ducks will have to be done individually. Yet, he looks to the challenge with the hope of being listed among the winners, just like his father is.

At times, Spradley still struggles with residual effects of cancer treatment. “It’s something you learn to live with and not let it stop you. (You) have faith that the Good Lord is with you, (and you) try to make a difference in every day.”

He said that experiencing cancer has changed life entirely. He has learned to see God’s miracles in everything. “ ‘Only the Good Lord can make beautiful things,’ ” Spradley remarked, recalling what he had heard his mother say so frequently. “I carry that quote with me daily.”

He cherishes family, enjoys friendships, studies with an insatiable hunger for knowledge, paints with conviction and appreciates the preciousness of life.

“I’m thankful for every day.”

Buddy Spradley’s artwork is available through his Facebook page and at Pell City Coffee Company. Visit www.heritagehallmuseum.org/community to see Buddy Spradley’s ornament, as well as those produced by the other 13 North and Central Alabama artists. (A note of interest: Three of the other 13 artists are current students of Wayne Spradley.)

Jenny Gauld

Her monumental legacy

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Submitted photos

Dr. Jenny Gauld stood 5 feet 3. Yet, those who knew her said her influence in everything she undertook was monumental.

From rearing children to helping those in need to establishing a new program at a university, she did it with vision and diligence, they say.

“She gave 110 percent at the very least,” said daughter Lee Franklin Shafer of Anniston.

Following a brief illness, 78-year-old Dr. Gauld – who had 6 children (one deceased), 11 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild – passed away on March 14, 2017.

The legacy she left is far reaching.

 

… as wife and mom

Her husband of 40 years, Ernie Gauld of Pell City, described her as “a fun person.”

“She loved people and loved making people happy,” the Rev. Shafer said of her mom.

Denson Franklin III of Birmingham, Dr. Gauld’s son, said his mother was patient and supportive of her children. “We knew she loved us unconditionally.” An “intense listener, … she saw value and worth in everyone.”

Not only was she an avid Atlanta Braves fan, but she also was an excellent cook and gardener. “Whenever we would visit, she would send us home with a grocery sack full of tomatoes, pole beans, eggplant, squash and cucumbers,” Franklin recalled.

She was quite the knitter and seamstress too, Franklin continued. “I still have the corduroy Winnie the Pooh she made that was my full-time companion from about age 3 until somebody told me I was too old for dolls!”

She and her husband liked antique vehicles and had 10 of them. Dr. Gauld’s favorite was a 1955 red Jaguar, which she made certain her husband handled with care.

Even in her husband’s hobby, Dr. Gauld was fully committed. As a result, she was named to the board of directors for the Library and Research Center of the Antique Automobile Club of America.

 

… as a leader

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Gauld worked at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where in 1986 she became the institution’s first assistant vice president for enrollment management, said Cindy Roberts Holmes of Hoover. Ms. Holmes was Dr. Gauld’s executive assistant.

Ultimately, Dr. Gauld became vice president of student affairs, the first female to hold a vice presidential position at UAB.

The Rev. Shafer credits her mother with being a trailblazer who wanted women to be “known for their brains and skills. … Because of women like Mom, who broke down the barriers between men and women in the ‘70s, I have had a much easier time in my career as an Episcopal priest, another role that was historically reserved for men.”

Some UAB projects that bore Dr. Gauld’s fingerprint included the Campus Recreation Center, the Commons on the Green dining facility, and the transition from a “commuter school” to a full-service institution, according to the UAB National Alumni Society and UAB News Archives. Early admission to UAB’s medical school was also one of her projects, states another source.

“She is credited with leading UAB in enrollment growth and was strongly committed to diversity,” said Stella Cocoris of Hoover, who retired from UAB as assistant vice president for enrollment services and university registrar. “Under her leadership, a pioneering program in minority recruitment and retention graduated hundreds of students who are now professionals in the fields of health, law, business and more.

“Jenny’s vision and drive helped change UAB from its well-established and long-standing image as a ‘commuter school’ to that of a vibrant residential campus with a full complement of student programs and activities – the UAB of today.”

 

… as a visionary

Dr. Gauld’s time away from the office was no different.

In 1985, for example, she was a volunteer with Family Violence Project that later came to be a service of the YWCA Central Alabama, said Suzanne Durham of Cook Springs, YWCA’s chief executive officer for 34 years. YWCA Central Alabama is based in Birmingham.

A year later, Dr. Gauld was named to the YWCA board of directors. In four more years, she was president, a post she held five years, Ms. Durham said.

In 2000, Dr. Gauld helped to start the Purse & Passion Luncheon in Birmingham to raise funds for the YWCA emergency shelter and services.

After her time as president, “she co-chaired two capital campaigns that each raised close to $15 million,” Ms. Durham said. “The campaign in 2006-2008 raised funds to bring a domestic violence shelter to St. Clair County and build a new family homeless shelter and affordable housing in a neighborhood close to downtown Birmingham.”

The YWCA board planned to surprise Dr. Gauld by naming the St. Clair shelter “Jenny’s Place.” Dr. Gauld, however, wanted people to feel dignity in saying they live at “Our Place” instead of at “Jenny’s Place.” Thus, it is called “Our Place” at her request.

Nine years after Purse & Passion commenced in Birmingham, Dr. Gauld duplicated that annual fundraiser in Pell City. “Since then, Purse & Passion St. Clair County has raised nearly $500,000 in vital funding to support Our Place,” YWCA officials say. Dr. Gauld’s efforts were recognized in a special tribute at the 2016 event.

Before bringing Purse & Passion to St. Clair County, Dr. Gauld helped to establish the YWCA’s Prom Palooza locally. Through this endeavor, teen girls in need in St. Clair receive a free gown, accessories and shoes for their special night.

 

… as the achiever

A native of Gadsden, Virginia Gauld earned her bachelor’s degree in education from Emory University. From the University of Alabama, she received both a master’s in rehabilitation counseling and a doctorate in higher education administration. She began her career in 1967 as a first-grade teacher and joined the staff of UAB in 1977.

The Virginia D. Gauld National Alumni Society Endowed Scholarship was established at UAB in her honor. She retired from UAB in 2006.

According to UAB News Archives, Birmingham News deemed her “one of Birmingham’s most influential women,” and Birmingham Business Journal named her “one of the top 10 Birmingham women.” She served with the National Conference for Community Justice and Cahaba Girl Scout Council.

In addition, she was a graduate of Leadership Alabama and Leadership Birmingham, and served on the Jefferson State Community College advisory board.

After moving to Pell City, she was “citizen of the year,” a member of the boards of directors for Rotary Club of Pell City, Pell City Housing Authority and Pell City Center for Education and Performing Arts (CEPA). She was active in many facets of Pell City First United Methodist Church.

Ms. Cocoris, who worked with Dr. Gauld 20 years, found her to be a woman of integrity. “She was compassionate, passionate about her work, and the epitome of commitment and dedication to UAB and her many community-based interests, especially the YWCA. … She would never ask someone to do work she was unwilling to do herself. … She had an innate ability to identify and value an individual’s unique skills and, in doing so, gave many people the gift of better knowing and valuing themselves.”

 

… as a friend

During the challenging years of establishing a new program at UAB, a bond of trust developed between Ms. Holmes and Dr. Gauld that grew stronger and stronger.

They were known as the “dynamic duo.”

“We were best friends,” said Ms. Holmes, who became Dr. Gauld’s assistant in 1984. “She loved my family, and I loved hers.”

When Ms. Holmes’ husband suddenly became gravely ill in 2003, Dr. Gauld accomplished the near impossible, setting up in only two days a scholarship in his name before his passing.

“Jenny Gauld was the one person who made the most impact on who I am today,” Ms. Holmes continued. “She was my mentor, my best friend and my soul mate. She touched everyone she knew in a special way, but none more than me.”

She had a gift for making people feel special.

One day in 2008, Brenda Wyatt of Pell City answered her telephone to hear, “This is Jenny Gauld. I’ve been told you are someone I need to meet.”

Dr. Gauld had contacted Mrs. Wyatt because both of them shared a desire to help women and children in crisis or poverty.

Immediately, the two women connected. “There was something about Jenny that made me feel as if we had known each other all of our lives,” Mrs. Wyatt recounted.

During the many hours spent planning an emergency shelter for women and children, a precious friendship blossomed between Mrs. Wyatt and Dr. Gauld.

“My life is immensely richer for having known Dr. Virginia Gauld,” Mrs. Wyatt said. “To be called her friend will always be considered one of the great honors of my life. … She did not need to know me. Quite the contrary, I needed to know her. And for that, I will be forever enriched and grateful.” l

Purse & Passion is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 24, at 11:30 a.m. at the Beacon of Pell City First United Methodist Church. If anyone is interested in hosting a table or attending the fundraiser as a guest, they can contact Liz Major at lmajor@ywcabham.org or (205) 322-9922 ext. 350 for more information.

Harry Charles McCoy

From the Heart

Story by Jackie Romine Walburn
Photos by Graham Hadley
Contributed Photos

Friends and co-workers describe Harry Charles McCoy as a hardworking, dedicated, humble, compassionate “gentle giant” with unfailing integrity, a man who started work at age 12 and whose determination and caring spirit helped him become an enterprising business man and highly-respected father, grandfather and community member.

The 68-year-old is probably best known in his hometown of Pell City for his infectious smile, a lifetime of helping others and being the longest-serving employee of Kilgroe Funeral, with more than 55 years on the job and counting.

Harry Charles was 9 when his father, Blois McCoy, died at the age of 37, leaving his mother, Josephine McCoy, with eight children to raise. Vowing to aid his mother, Harry Charles stepped up to help for the first of countless times, going to work doing odd jobs around town and at the Lee Motel, where his mother was employed.A 12-year-old Harry Charles was cutting grass at the motel when a friend of the Kilgroe family asked him if he’d like another job. “I said, ‘Yes ma’am.’ That was 1962, and I’ve been here ever since,” says Harry Charles.

Jane Rich Kilgroe vividly remembers meeting young Harry Charles when she came to visit her then-boyfriend Sonny Kilgroe at the family business, Kilgroe Funeral Home, run by her future father-in-law, Joe Kilgroe. “I couldn’t get over him being just 12 and working seven days a week,” Mrs. Kilgroe says of Harry Charles. She says he grew to be like a brother to her late husband Sonny, a caring companion to Sonny’s mother, Mrs. Josephine Kilgroe, and a bonified member of the Kilgroe family. “I don’t know how I would have made it through after Sonny died, without Harry Charles,” says Jane Kilgroe.

Even after Sonny’s failing health prompted the Kilgroe family to sell the funeral home business in 1991 – with a clause in the contract that Harry Charles McCoy would have a job as long as he wanted one – Harry Charles remains an important part of the Kilgroe family.

Through junior high and high school, Harry worked every day, even while playing football at St. Clair County High School. “And he gave all his pay to his mother for the family,” Jane recalls.

Harry Charles cut the grass at the Second Avenue funeral home and washed cars. Soon he learned how to put up the tents at gravesides and take them down. Some days he came late to the funeral home, walking the 2 miles from home or riding his bicycle, once he got one, at almost dark after football practice.

“Folks asked me about it, if it bothered me working at a funeral home or being here at night,” Harry Charles recalls. “It never has bothered me. I’d lost family myself, and that’s one reason why I think it’s important to do all you can, to do the best for the families, to let them know you care. It’s the final thing you can do for a family.”

About the time that 12-year-old Harry Charles started working at the funeral home, so did Barnett Lawley, who had also lost his father at a too-young age. “We were in the same shape, trying to work to help earn money,” say Lawley, who was a few years older. A quick, lifelong friendship resulted. “We were close good friends. We went hunting together, went to each other’s football games. Everything was segregated then, but we didn’t know or care.”

Lawley remembers when he, Harry Charles and Sonny Kilgroe would take the flower van – on a free day when there was not a funeral – and camp out together at Huckleberry Pond.

 Now, 50-plus years later, Lawley, a businessman who served eight years as Alabama’s Commissioner of Conservation and Natural Resources in Gov. Bob Riley’s administration, says his respect for his childhood friend has just grown. “I can’t put into words how much I admire him.”

Lawley calls Harry Charles an example “of what we all should be. He’s always hustling, working hard for his family and friends. He thinks about others first and is absolutely a leader in this community.

“Harry Charles is the kind of friend you know will always be there for you.”

Stories about Harry Charles’ determination, hard work and caring spirit come quick to those know him. There is the time when Harry turned 16 and Joe Kilgroe said, “Harry, you need to get your driver’s license,” and Harry Charles took off and ran to the courthouse and ended up taking his driver’s test in the state trooper car of the late Trooper George Gant, who insisted on paying the license fee.

Once he was 16 and had the license, Harry learned to do more and more jobs for the funeral home. “Mr. Joe told me that if I’d graduate high school, I’d always have a job, and I have,” Harry says with a grin. “They’ve been like family to me many years.”

He grew up side by side with Sonny Kilgroe, who was a few years older and taught Harry how to do most every job at the funeral home. “We were always working together. He helped me, and I learned a lot. Mr. Sonny was like my brother,” Harry says. Sonny died in 2015. “I’ll never stop missing him.”

It was 1986 when Harry Charles began opening and closing graves for the funeral home, first by hand, which was standard then. Former co-worker Terry Wilson, who now works at Ridout’s Valley Chapel at Homewood, recalls Harry Charles working a full day at Kilgroe, then going to hand dig a grave for a funeral the next day. “I’d go check on him, and it’d be dark, and he’d have the truck lights shining on him, still digging by hand, late into the evening.”

With time, Harry devised a way to use a trailer pulled behind his truck to smooth out the dirt before the service “because it bothered him for the families to see a pile of dirt,” Wilson says. Next, Harry Charles began using a ditch witch, then power equipment and today has a fleet of equipment – including three dump trucks and a tractor – and his own business opening and closing graves in St. Clair and other counties.

He’s built his own business, all the while serving others and having a love for what he does, for his community and for the families he serves, Wilson says. “He has the best attitude and work ethic. In my lifetime, I’ve never known anyone I respect more than Harry Charles McCoy.”

Another story revolves around one of those trucks, a low-mileage truck Harry found at a local dealership traded in by actor Jim Nabors, who needed a bigger truck for work on his sister’s nearby farm. “Harry always called that truck Gomer Pyle,” says Jane. “He still has Gomer Pyle.”

At the center of many Harry Charles stories are his concern and service to families being served by Kilgroe Funeral Home.

“When my stepfather died,” recalls Teresa Carden, “Harry Charles pulled my car around back and washed it while I was inside at the service, so my car would be polished in the procession. How awesome and thoughtful was that?” Carden adds, “He is sincere and hardworking to the core.”

Jane Kilgroe recalls that when she and Sonny were about to get married, Sonny was so nervous that Harry Charles packed Sonny’s suitcase for the honeymoon. “That’s how close they were,” Jane says.

Soon Harry Charles came to Mr. Joe and said he’d found himself a girlfriend, Jane says. Harry and Linda Sanders were married at the courthouse and soon began their family. Today, he and Linda, who is retired from working with the Kilgroe family at home and at Josephine’s antique shop, have 48 years of marriage and seven grown children.

They are Harry Lamar McCoy, who served 32 years in the military, is still in the reserves and works at ACIPCO in Birmingham; Sabrina McCoy Wilson, a school teacher in Michigan; Charles McCoy, who works at Norfolk-Southern Railroad, and Malinda Fomby, who works at DHR in Pell City. Also raised in the McCoy household and counted among their children are nephew Nicholas Dante McCoy, who works at Norfolk-Southern, and grandsons Javoan McCoy and Montez McCoy, who both work at ACIPCO, and granddaughter Shayla. He and Linda now also dote on a great-grandson and a great-granddaughter. The family attends Rocky Zion Missionary Baptist Church.

All in the family

Friends brag, too, about Harry and Linda’s family. “They taught their children a strong work ethic, good manners and to be respectful,” says Buddy Spradley, Jane’s nephew who taught McCoy children during his 20 years teaching elementary art at Iola Roberts Elementary School in Pell City. He adds, “And, Harry, he’s as strong as an ox, but his heart is even bigger.”

Working for Sonny’s Czechoslovakian mother, Josephine Bukacek Kilgroe, at her antique shop by the funeral home and the family home, Harry Charles needed that strength.

“We’d get truckloads of antiques at once,” he says. Lots of heavy lifting, setting them up, cleaning and polishing the furniture, “only with Johnson’s Paste Wax,” Jane adds.

Miss Josephine was a joy, Harry says. “I knew how she was and we got along very well.” Another Harry story friends tell was about the night Pell City’s power was out all over town and Harry Charles didn’t get an answer when he called to check on Josephine. He rushed to her house, and having a key she gave him, went in and found Mrs. Kilgroe on the floor with a broken shoulder, unable to move. “It scared him to death,” Jane recalls. “Josephine kept insisting she had to be moved. He called the ambulance and picked her up and laid her on the couch, this couch right here,” she says.

After the fall and surgery, Josephine, who was 86, had to go to a nursing home for rehabilitation, with 24-hour RN care.

Linda McCoy was there with her often, too. “She wasn’t happy at first until she figured out she saw more people in a day there than a week at home. Harry went to see her every morning – he had helped her with breakfast every day at home – and fixed her coffee like she liked it and began the habit of taking Josephine’s clothes to the dry cleaners because she liked nice clothes, and he continued to do that until her death in 2006 at age 94. Then the family and Harry and Linda did the work to close down Josephine’s antique shop.

Another Harry story Jane likes to tell is about how Harry built his family’s seven-bedroom home in Pell City from a one-room house owned by his grandmother and deeded to him along with 8 acres of land. Harry added on with every child, and today the home is filled with antiques from purchases or gifts from the antique shop and from broken or reject pieces that Harry repaired or refurbished or one of his friends did. There are cows and horses on the 8 acres now, too.

Today, Harry Charles begins his days checking on Jane Kilgroe. They are best friends, too, she says. They have breakfast and talk about their days, about old times, about Sonny, and Josephine and Joe, about Linda and their children, grandchildren and greats.

Jane Kilgroe, Barnett Lawley and many others in Pell City have longs lists of things Harry Charles did for them and the ways they admire him. For Harry Charles’ part, he says he enjoys “helping people and doing what I can for others.”

He says he believes “it’s an honor and great privilege to do for other people. My mother was that way, too,” he says. “She used to say if you can’t help, don’t hinder. I try to do my best for people. Helping is from the heart.”

Praised Colors

From Sweden to Ragland, artist’s life takes many a turn

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Michael Callahan

Marie Barber shooed chickens and a guinea to welcome a visitor one bitterly cold day.

Once inside her woodsy home with warm Gulf Coast decor, she smiled and said, “It does feel like Sweden out there.”

Living near Ragland and the Coosa River, this Swedish native quietly creates designs and artwork that are nationally known and have been featured in many books, magazines and retail outlets.

Her resume is extensive: she has been an illustrator for the magazines Paula Deen, Victoria, Tea Time and Southern Lady; a designer for Chapelle Ltd. of Ogden, Utah, and creator of cross-stitch designs that filled six or more books for Sterling Publishing Co. of New York. In addition, she illustrated leisure, etiquette and decor books.

During her 15 years as designer with Hoffman Media, she did “hundreds and hundreds of cross-stitch leaflets and cross-stitch designs for magazines,” and all cross-stitch chart conversions from the Disney movie, Pocahontas. Also through Hoffman Media, she fashioned fabric designs for the former Hancock Fabrics and worked on Hancock’s Paula Deen Collection.

A count even commissioned Mrs. Barber to replicate in his mansion some paintings of the Sistine Chapel.

Mrs. Barber spent three weeks on eight-foot scaffolds in Count Albert von Oldenburg’s living room to paint the scenes on a 37-foot tray ceiling. The palatial estate in Eastaboga in Talladega County was like a museum and a history book, Mrs. Barber said.

“When you went to his home, it was like you were in a fairy tale. You were not in Alabama,” she continued.

During those weeks, the count taught her etiquette in the presence of nobility and gave her keepsakes from all over the world.

That, Mrs. Barber said, “was probably the most memorable experience” she has had with her art.

Now working in the decorative art of needlepoint, Mrs. Barber produces “fun” designs and projects. She designs belts, pillows, eyeglass cases, phone cases, lampshade covers, jewelry, purses and bags, rugs and tapestries, and has done custom orders for dining room chairs.

The formative years

Marie Olsson spent her early years in Skåne (pronounced skone-neh) on the southern tip of Sweden. Skåne is about 20 minutes from the Baltic Sea. The region is flat and experiences snow four months a year.

“Sometimes, your eyelashes iced up,” she recalled.

Marie and her parents lived with grandparents in the countryside in a home without indoor plumbing.

When she was six years old, she and her parents moved to Tollarp to what she described as an elaborate home with an indoor sauna.

Each Christmas, she wanted art paper and markers. By second grade, she was an acclaimed artist, at least to her classmates who would ask her to draw Donald Duck, Goofy and Mickey Mouse for them.

Her father passed when Marie was 10, and her mother, three years ago.

Although Marie has no siblings, she does have 40 first cousins living around the world. One of them — Anna Steed — lives in St. Clair County not very far at all from Marie.

As a teenager, Marie applied to the American Scandinavian Student Exchange program to become an exchange student.

Interestingly, while in a music class in ninth grade in Sweden, she had sung the lyrics, “I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee.” But, Marie confessed, “I had no idea Alabama was a state.”

Nonetheless, that is exactly where she was placed as an exchange student. The girl from the southern tip of Sweden with a southern Swedish dialect found herself in the southern region of the United States.

Even though she was to be in Alabama only for Pell City High School’s 1983-1984 school year, Marie found she just could not stay away. One reason was Kinsman Barber, a Pell City native and Jacksonville State University student she met four months into her sojourn in the United States.

After completing the exchange program, Marie returned to Sweden, finished junior college and worked for a while in Stockholm. Then, at 19, she decided to attend art school either in Australia or the U.S. She chose the U.S., going first to California and then to Alabama by bus.

Marie traveled to Auburn University to stay with friend Wendy Bradshaw Weathers (who now lives in Ozark). Through an outreach ministry to foreign students, Marie heard about Jesus Christ, His love and the forgiveness He gives to all who will receive it.

“I utterly broke down and couldn’t believe anyone would love me in spite of all my unrighteousness,” said Marie. She asked Jesus Christ to save her.

A “long, winding road” brought her and Kinsman back into contact.

She enrolled in the Art Institute of Atlanta to study visual communication and, a week after earning her associate’s degree, she and Kinsman wed.

Marie, the artist, and Kinsman, the teacher and coach at Victory Christian School, have been married 27 years and have four children — Malin, 21; Peyton, 19; Daniel, 17, and Magdalena, 16.

They also have 18 chickens, three dogs, two cats, one guinea and an herb garden.

“I enjoy the simplicity of life,” said Mrs. Barber. To her, it is reminiscent of the childhood experiences she cherishes most. The years of living in the Swedish countryside as a child were simple and meager. But, “my best memories were in the country.”

In her Alabama country home nestled in the woods, she creates her art while listening to sermons by David Platt, president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and best-selling author.

“God has allowed me to work at home,” Mrs. Barber said.

A diverse talent

Mrs. Barber’s art spans many genres.

“I used to do Christian art — cards and prints,” she said. “I did that for a little while.”

One of her pieces hangs in her church, which is Hardin Chapel in Ragland.

From the large floral acrylic on canvas that accents her dining room to the vibrant needlepoint pillow she had just finished, all her pieces show her penchant and flare for color.

“I’m all about pink leopard with some fur,” she said with a laugh. “… I like color. I’m not traditional.”

When she formed her own art design company, it was appropriately named Colors of Praise.

“Most designers use their name for their design,” she said. She chose, however, to use the name Colors of Praise because its gives her opportunity to tell others who Jesus Christ is. She said all her accomplishments are small in comparison to what Jesus has done for her.

Getting to where she is now in her art was the result of another “winding road” in life that started with an economic recession.

In February 2009, downsizing at Hoffman Media claimed her position as illustrator and cross-stitch designer. Because of that, she sought a new direction for her art.

Mrs. Barber had seen Kaffe Fassett’s color schemes in his decorative arts designs and noticed that they resemble her own use of color. When her love of color was paired with her appreciation for the tapestries of Europe, Mrs. Barber found a new direction for her art – needlepoint designs.

That April, she sent her application to The National NeedleArts Association and was accepted to a trade show in Columbus, Ohio. Her first show was in June, during which she received $15,000 in orders.

Since then, she has shown her wares in trade shows in Los Angeles and San Diego, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Dallas, Texas, and many other cities. The majority of her creations are marketed in Florida, California and the northeastern states. Locally, they can be found at Needleworks LLC in Birmingham.

Kinsman said his wife frequently gets ideas for needlepoint designs from sources like magazines and record covers.

And the designs are not “your grandmother’s needlepoint,” Mrs. Barber said.

“Her work truly is an original style,” said Judith Carter, owner of Needleworks LLC. “To me, she has captured the essence of a younger generation of needlepoint stitchers…She has been an exciting addition to our industry.”

One of the needlepoint belts Mrs. Barber recently completed boasts a spectrum of colors, flosses, textures, patterns and accents. Retail is estimated between $160 and $200.

She develops 200-250 designs for each January’s needle arts trade show and another 100 for the summer show.

“I like to design a lot of new patterns every year,” she said. “… I want it to be more of what they would have fun with.”

Plus, she has monthly trunk shows. “I sell to a lot of stores in California,” she said.

Her venture into needlepoint designs followed a different path from the norm, she explained.

“I am an illustrator coming in as a designer (who had to learn needlepoint),” she said. “Most are needlepointers becoming designers.”

To be able to do what she does, she had to become accomplished in the various needlepoint stitches and learn the difference in flosses and other aspects of the art.

Actually, her needlepoint enterprise has grown into a family endeavor.

“The girls are very creative,” Mrs. Barber said. “There are times I ask them for advice. Malin could run my business. She has done trade shows without me.”

The family sometimes travels to shows with her and, together, they see sights and tour landmarks. “That has been a fun, fun part of it,” she said.

Mrs. Barber is in an almost constant state of creativity, whether painting a canvas, stitching a needlepoint project or using seashells washed ashore by Hurricane Wilma to turn an accent mirror into a conversation piece.

“Taking away paint from me would be devastating.” She said it would be like telling her husband — who happened to be playing guitar in the background — to give up his music.

“… It’s my crazy world!” 

 

For more about Marie Barber and Colors of Praise,

visit www.colorsofpraiseart.com

Shall We Dance?

Dale Owen shares music around the world

Story by Paul South
Submitted Photos

As a journalism student at Troy State (now Troy University), Dale Owen landed a job at an AM radio station near campus.

“They had a show on Saturday morning that played crooner music,” Owen said. “The station manager just wanted someone to keep the seat warm while the program aired. But I found out it was an incredible genre of music.”

His time “keeping the seat warm” sparked something more.

“It really lit a fire in me,” Owen said. “I decided that if I ever had control over my own show, I’d play that kind of music.”

Almost 30 years later, Owen’s love for the music of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald and countless other contributors to the great American songbook still burns.

And each week from a home studio in Pell City, he shares that love with the world. Owen records The Crooners with Dale Owen for Alabama Public Radio. The show airs from 6 p.m.-8 p.m. Sunday evenings on the APR, but thanks to technology, is available to be heard ‘round the globe. Commercial radio may have forgotten the music of our parents, grandparents and beyond, but for Owen and APR over the past 21 years, the music and memories linger like the taste of timeless fine wine.

Owen’s post college path didn’t start as a stroll down a musical memory lane. The Marietta, Ga., native began his professional life as a producer at CNN, first in Atlanta, then at the network’s Detroit Bureau.

But after six years, Michigan winters drove him back South. Owen went to work at the University of Alabama’s Center for Public Radio and Television in Tuscaloosa as operations director for the Alabama Public Radio network of stations, which reaches not only across Alabama, but into Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida. He also worked for National Public Radio as a local anchor for the network’s signature news programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

In Tuscaloosa, he pitched the idea for The Crooners to then program director Roger Duvall. “I loved Sinatra and the crooners, of course, and fortunately, he went for it,” Owen recalled.

After 11 years at the Capstone, Owen would eventually relocate to Pell City, his wife’s hometown. And from Pell City, Owen crafts what APR music director David Duff calls, Owen’s “labor of love.”

“One of the missions of public radio is to serve underserved audiences,” Duff said. “Certainly, we do that with classical music, but we do that with specialty shows on the weekend like The Crooners. You’d be hard pressed to find that on most radio stations. We felt like it was a market we could serve and it’s proved to be very successful. It serves a niche that might not be served otherwise.”

Brittany Young, program director and content manager for APR, put it simply. “People love the show,” she said. “They just love the fact that he plays the classics. . .the music that lasts forever. You can play it today. You can play it 20 years from now, and it’s still amazing. It takes you back to a place where you first heard it. People love that.”

The Crooners has a devout following, Young said. “If you were to take it away from them, then there would be an uproar,” she said. “Those loyal listeners, they’ll let you know. . .They expect to hear it every Sunday from 6 to 8 and as long as it’s there, they’re good. But if you took it away, I’m sure we’d get a lot of backlash.”

The success of the program came quickly. What began as a one-hour broadcast was expanded to two hours after only a year. And listeners span the generations. Owen learned that quickly during a pledge drive for the listener-supported network while he was still broadcasting from Tuscaloosa.

“When I was still in Tuscaloosa in 2001, we would get calls from college kids, some in Auburn, some in Tuscaloosa and other parts of the state,” Owen said. “(They’d say) ‘I only have about $5 to contribute. I’m a college student on a fixed income, but I really love your show.’ The show has done well.”

What’s the attraction of the music that resonates even today, not just in the classic singers of yesteryear, but also in modern rock and pop stars, from Rod Stewart and Linda Ronstadt, to Annie Lennox of the Eurhythmics and Brian Setzer of The Stray Cats?

“It’s something different for every person that listens. But I think if you’re talking about standards and even torch songs, there’s a certain longing for love,” Owen said. “The songs that are written by the great composers – Rodgers and Hart, George and Ira Gershwin – they just found a way to reach down into that hole and just pull out the feelings and emotions so many people have about love and about loss.”

The recipe for timeless music combines a great voice, with great music and lyrics and a great arranger. Owen points to the classic Sinatra album, In the Wee Small Hours, arranged by Nelson Riddle, as an example.

“I think that music just created a bond with something that all people have to be loved and a feeling of loss,” Owen said. “When you’ve got great writers and lyricists and great singers like Andy Williams and Sinatra and Tony Bennett that can present that, it just all melts together. It’s like a perfect storm.”

There’s a set formula for a timeless classic.

“Most of your standard music has two elements that are crucial to great music and that is, a great vocalist and a great lyricist/composer. Those are the two elements you’ve got to have to make the perfect song,” Owen said. “Crooner music exhibits that time and time again. It comes together for that perfect storm that people say, “Yeah, that’s exactly how I feel about it.”

Lots of people love Owen’s Sunday night perfect storm of great songs. Some reach out on social media. Others send in requests for Sunday night dinner parties. For Owen, those are precious encouragements.

“That’s huge for me. It’s a real affirmation that (the show) makes an impact on people’s lives,” Owen said.

He said he feels a strong connection to his listeners.  For Owen, the fire for the music and for pleasing his listeners still burns. And audiences around the world can access the show any time. “I don’t know what people’s perceptions are of people on the radio,” he said. “But I hope they know I’m a real guy who loves this real music and wants them to have an experience when they listen. I want them to know they’re listening to a friend that has something very much in common with them.” l

Editor’s Note: You can tune in to The Crooners with Dale Owen on Alabama Public Radio at 90.3 FM every Sunday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Steel Magnolia

historian-mattie-lou-teague-crow

Ashville’s Mattie Lou Teague Crow

mattie-lou-teague-crow-teenStory and photos by Jerry Smith
Submitted photos

Those of us who work with history sometimes stand on broad shoulders as we search for every pertinent detail, no matter how obscure, to ensure the veracity of our offerings.

Accurate, comprehensive input is as vital to us as a blueprint is to a construction foreman. Occasionally, we encounter a single book by an author who writes as if they were actually there. Such a work is History of St. Clair County, Alabama by Ashville’s Mattie Lou Teague Crow, the one go-to book for most beginning researchers.

While other writers such as Rubye Hall Edge Sisson (From Trout Creek To Ragland) and Vivian Buffington Qualls (History of Steele, Alabama) have expanded our knowledge of their communities, Mrs. Crow’s book is the single, definitive work that covers the whole county.

Writer and historian Joe Whitten fondly characterized his colleague as “… a Southern lady through and through, with an iron fist inside a velvet glove. When necessary, she would not hesitate to remove the glove.”

 She’s reputed to have arranged a business meeting with a very important official from Montgomery. When he walked in the door of the restaurant and sat down, she immediately chastised him for not removing his hat in the presence of a lady.

Her penchant for history began in early childhood while living in her mother’s hotel and boarding house. In those days, Ashville was a bustling city with lots of opportunity for her to pester guests and travelers for every detail of their adventures and knowledge of the outside world.

 

Life at the Teague Hotel

Mattie Lou was born near Ashville in 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers first flew. She was the seventh and youngest child of Talulah (Nunneley) and John Rowan Teague. Her father, a farmer, died when she was only 2.

Quoting an entry in Heritage of St. Clair County by Mary McClendon Fouts, “… Lula Teague could not support her family on the farm, so she moved to Ashville and took in sewing for a time.

“There was a large two-storied house built by Curtiss Grubb Beason, about the time that Ashville was incorporated, where the Union State Bank stands today. Lula Teague’s brother, Robert Nunneley, and his wife Emma had operated it (as the Village Inn) for many years.

“Robert decided to retire, and Lula then operated it until her death in 1942. Her daughter, Annie, operated it for 10 or more years after that. This … is where their seven children grew up. It was a sad day in 1960 when the old hotel was demolished.”

Also in Heritage, Mattie Lou’s sister, Annie (Teague) McClendon recalls: “I remember how our mother bought this old house in the year of 1909 and moved us there: Grandmother Nunneley, Uncle Rufus, my four brothers, my little sister (Mattie Lou) and myself.

“After she made a small down payment on the place, we had no money, so we all worked, helping as best we could. The boys helped, not only with the chores, but at any little job they could find, in order to buy their clothes and shoes and help with the expenses. I stopped school to help with the housework. Our baby sister did her part, too.

“I remember the big kitchen and dining room where so much food was prepared and served.” Mattie Lou’s daughter, Ellen (Crow) Smith, adds that a lot of that food came from the family garden, chicken coop and smokehouse. She also says her mother’s job was ironing linen napkins for the dinner table, a job she hated and prophetically swore that when she grew up she would invent paper napkins that could be used once then thrown away.

Annie continues, “We had a black mammy whom we loved very much. She was Josephine Smith, often called Mammy Jo. She was with us about 30 years.

“I remember how Mama got up long before daylight and worked long after dark. I remember the cheerful living room with open fire and piano, where we all gathered to sing. Our mother loved this part of the day most.

“I remember the big front room where the ‘drummers’ slept and where they showed their samples on tables or wooden planks laid across the foots of beds. I remember the doctors and their families who lived in this house and called it home, … and the teachers who boarded here (during school terms).

“I remember when our little sister (Mattie Lou) went away to school … and how we looked forward to Christmas and Thanksgiving, when she would be home.”

An obsessively inquisitive young Mattie Lou found a gold mine of knowledge among guests who lived at the hotel, many of whom were much educated and experienced in life.

In a 1999 News-Aegis story, Joe Whitten writes, “Born when this county was still in swaddling clothes, Mattie Lou lived in St Clair County for nearly a hundred years. As a girl and young woman, she heard Civil War battle stories from the old veterans themselves.

“She learned of Reconstruction hardships from the men and women who lived in Ashville in those days. It is no mystery why history was a life-long passion with her.”

Every one Mattie Lou met knew things that she yearned to discover and understand. She often eavesdropped to hear uncensored war stories as old soldiers chatted on the front porch after supper.

As a child, she loved to sneak into courtrooms during trials, sitting in the back row to avoid attention, but the judge would order his bailiff to remove her and her friends when a particularly heinous matter was before the bench,

 She diligently collected and annotated an unrivaled historical database. It’s said that her hope chest was full of historical documents instead of linens and personal items. In a sense, she was the history Wikipedia of her day.

 

Mattie Lou becomes Mrs. Crow

 Ellen tells that her future father, 25-year-old Abner (Ab) Hodges Crow, spent much of his leisure time at a wooden bench on the town square, chatting with his buddies as young men are wont to do. Naturally, this talk often included the opposite sex, which probably hasn’t changed since the days of the Pyramids.

Mattie Lou, some 11 years younger than Ab, sometimes walked by with a group of friends. He had his own way of expressing admiration and, once the girls were out of earshot, was known to say, “One day I’m going to be compelled to marry that girl.”

Ab was not known for being straitlaced and, given the age difference, her mother was not really fond of them getting married. Mattie Lou said in a Birmingham News story, “Momma told the man I married that I had to have at least two years of college education before I could settle down.”

Like any obedient but strong-minded young woman of that post-Victorian era, Mattie Lou accepted this condition, and immediately after graduating high school in 1921, she went to Alabama College for Women, which is now the University of Montevallo. She and Ab were married a few years later.

He’d learned a little about the pharmacy business while working for Dewberry Drugs in Birmingham and established a drugstore on the square in Ashville. Ab had no formal teaching in drugs, so had to employ a full-time pharmacist.

In 1932, the local sheriff was killed in action. Ab was appointed by the governor to complete the late sheriff’s term and was re-elected, serving a total of about eight years. Ellen recalls going with her father to homes out in the countryside, to inform families of the loss of one of their own. These trips were part of the sheriff’s duties, since there were no telephones.

Ellen said they usually went after her father had closed the drugstore for the day and, with no rural electricity, most of these grim visits were in pitch dark, where they often encountered snarling dogs in the middle of the night.

She adds that her father was a compassionate man who never turned away a hobo or transient during the Depression. They were not allowed in the house, but Mattie Lou would tell them to wait on the front steps of the Methodist church, and Sheriff Ab would allow them to eat and sleep in the jail overnight.

 

Heritage hoarder

A well-educated woman, Mattie Lou also attended Jacksonville State Teachers’ College and University of Alabama, with degrees in elementary and secondary education and library science. Teaching was in her genes. Her grandfather, E.B. Teague, was a superintendent of education. Her father was principal of Springville School.

One of her first official assignments was a school for farmers’ and migrant workers’ children on Chandler Mountain. Rather than commute every day, she stayed in the homes of farm families and shared their lifestyle.

Mattie Lou taught at several St. Clair and Jefferson County schools, directed libraries at Judson College, Samford University and Homewood High School, and taught library science at night at UAB. But all the while she was stockpiling documents and information that would fuel her true avocation, preserving heritage.

By the early 1960s she had published a short history of Ashville Baptist Church, followed in 1973 by her most important single work, The History of St. Clair County, Alabama, the first book of its kind for our county. It endures to this day as a superbly written, comprehensive resource for all who would follow her lead.

Four years later, she produced Diary of a Confederate Soldier—John Washington Inzer 1834-1928, which edited and preserved the Civil War memoirs of one of Ashville’s premier citizens. It’s a treasure for Civil War buffs, as it factually portrays lesser-known factors, events and emotions as written by a highly literate man who served in a losing battle, then became a working part of Alabama’s re-entry into the United States after Appomattox.

Joe Whitten adds, “Perhaps her crowning achievement was the Ashville Museum and Archives. Dedicated in 1989, the Archive was originally in a room at the Ashville Library. Mrs. Crow believed it was important for us to know who we are and where we came from.

“She once commented, ‘Give me a name and I can take it back six generations.’ After listening to her recount names, dates and places, some of us wondered if she couldn’t take one or two families all the way back to Adam and Eve!”

Joe affirms that recently-retired archivist Charlene Simpson has virtually equaled her mentor’s level of expertise in ancestral name-dropping. Both will be sorely missed.

Every public document, official record, land deed, obsolete file, minutes of meetings, every scrap of yesteryear was sacred to Mattie Lou. She prevented several hundred pounds of courthouse documents from being burned, as evidenced by charred edges on some which were snatched from a roaring bonfire by Mattie Lou herself.

In a Birmingham News story by Melanie Jones, Mrs. Crow is quoted in her later years, “Why I’m just an old country lady that does as she pleases. My husband died 30 years ago and my children were both at the university. I sold the drug store and went back to school. I had a feeling Ashville would be very drab if I sat still.”

According to another News writer, Mike Easterling, Mattie Lou got an elementary education degree from Jacksonville State Teachers College (now Jacksonville State University) in 1949, then got a secondary degree in 1950, not long after Ab’s death. She later joined her children, Ellen and Pete, at the University of Alabama, getting a master’s degree in library science.

And she was true to her word about not sitting still. She managed, delegated, arm-twisted, conspired and charmed her way through a bewildering list of historical quests and civil projects, most of which would not have succeeded without her dynamic spirit.

In the same News story, she is quoted, “You don’t get to my age unless you stir up some trouble now and then. I’ve fought with some folks like a tiger to get something done. But it gets done, and then we’re friends. You just gotta shake ‘em up a bit.”

 

Relocating history

While some strive to move mountains, Mrs. Crow was content to move a huge, historic, 132-year-old, two-story building across town to save it from the wrecking ball. It had been moved before to a location beside the Ashville City Jail, but once again was in the way of progress.

mattie-lout-teague-crow-museum-herefordA lover of all things historic, she could not bear to see this fine old structure demolished. Reluctant to put themselves at odds with the indomitable Mrs. Crow, the County Commission agreed that she could have the old building provided she moved it somewhere else, and soon. 

  Her crusade resulted in a new action group called Save The Ashville Masonic Lodge Council. In a mighty effort that’s still legendary among Ashville natives, Mrs. Crow spearheaded an effort to raise some $12,000 to cover expenses.

 It took only two months to secure these funds as well as a nearby piece of property donated by Jack Inzer in memory of his grandfathers, both of whom were Masons and lay at rest in nearby City Cemetery.

  It’s been said there was no door upon which she would not knock, no favor left uncalled, no politician immune to her bullyragging until the job was done and, with Mrs. Crow in the catbird seat, the 132-year-old Masonic Lodge soon found itself being moved to a third location.

The Masonic Lodge has been placed on the prestigious Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage. It now sits peacefully about a block from Ashville’s town square, serving as a monument to Ashville’s history and to its matron saint.

The Mattie Lou Teague Crow Museum upstairs contains many of her mementos. It’s presently open only by appointment. Call Ashville Archives for more information if you wish to visit. It’s a nice place to savor genuine antiquity.

In a 1990 Birmingham News story by Elma Bell, Council Member Hope Burger said, “As a result of Mattie Lou’s hysterics, all this is taking place. … This whole thing has been a team effort.” 

Such was the stuff of which St. Clair’s own Steel Magnolia was made.

 

A ‘legendarian’ passes

Some years before retirement, the widowed Mattie Lou and her sister-in-law, Gladys Teague, operated a small antiques shop in a little gingerbread-trimmed white house beside Roses & Lace Bed & Breakfast. It was the former Ashville Academy, so she named it Academy Antiques.

She spent several of her last years quietly reminiscing about her prodigious life in a book-lined apartment adjacent to daughter Ellen’s former home in Irondale. Mattie Lou donated most of her vast collections to be shared by one and all at Ashville Archives. 

She delighted in telling ghost stories to groups of children at Irondale Library. A 1982 Birmingham News article by Garland Reeves relates that one of her favorites was the sad saga of Old Tawassee, an Indian who stayed behind after his brothers were expelled from Alabama on the Trail of Tears.

Tawassee was hanged for civil mischief and is reputed to have haunted the town on that same day every year afterward by making his skeleton rattle in a local doctor’s closet and shaking the limb from which he was hanged.

 Joe Whitten wrote in the News-Aegis, “On the day the archives was dedicated, she said ‘I haven’t done anything. I’ve twisted a few arms to get stuff done, but it was others who did all the work.’ But it was her love for a county and a place called home that inspired her.”

In the same article, Joe eulogizes his friend and colleague, “On a sun-washed, blue-sky day last week, Mattie Lou Teague Crow was brought back to the county and the town she loved, and was laid to rest in Ashville Cemetery.

“It was a fitting day to say farewell to a lady who left us an impressive legacy of books, biographical sketches and human interest articles about St. Clair County.

“She’s found a new place to call home now. I wonder if she’s taking notes for her next book?”