Interview with Mary Waters Spalding, August 8, 2013 / H. Lee Waters Film Collection / Duke Digital Repository

-

My name is Craig Breaden.

0:00

I'm the audio visual archivist at Duke University,

0:01

and I'm with Kierston Johnson,

0:04

the curator of the Archive of Documentary Arts at Duke.

0:05

The date is August 8th, 2013, and we are in Lexington,

0:08

North Carolina, talking with Mary Waters Spalding

0:11

about her life and family and particularly

0:14

about her father, H. Lee Waters.

0:16

For the recording, please state your full name,

0:20

your date of birth and place of birth.

0:22

-

Okay, my name is Mary Elizabeth Waters Spalding,

0:25

and my place of birth was Lexington, North Carolina

0:29

in 1942.

0:32

May 14th, 1942.

0:34

-

Can you describe what Lexington was like

0:38

when you were growing up in the 1940s?

0:40

-

Well, I remember it as a small town,

0:43

but a thriving small town,

0:47

and probably the reason it was thriving was

0:49

because of all the furniture factories in town.

0:52

And that employed a lot of people and kept the town going.

0:56

And of course, they're no longer here,

1:01

but at that time it was thriving with those.

1:03

And it was a very friendly town.

1:05

My brother and I felt like we actually pretty much

1:10

knew everybody in town and a lot of that has to do

1:14

with the fact that we saw so many photographs

1:17

from our father, and we went with him,

1:20

on location to take photographs.

1:25

And we got to meet a lot of people.

1:27

And it was just a very friendly town

1:30

that people were very kind, very thoughtful,

1:35

and they were always very cordial with our father, H. Lee.

1:40

One thing is, I don't think any of us

1:50

ever felt unsafe in this town.

1:53

It was a very safe town to be in.

1:55

Never felt threatened by anything.

1:59

It was very, just a very happy childhood

2:01

living in Lexington.

2:04

-

Tell us about the rest of your family.

2:08

-

Well my brother, my older brother is eight years older

2:11

than I am, his name is Tom Waters,

2:14

and we had an older sister,

2:16

who would have been 13 years older than I.

2:21

My brother is eight years older than I.

2:23

And she was their first born,

2:27

and she had an illness.

2:30

She was epileptic at a very young age.

2:33

Probably started having seizures at--

2:38

-

About six months.

2:42

-

About six months old, and they progressively got worse.

2:43

And at that time in the 30s,

2:46

they didn't have the medication to help with that.

2:51

Probably just the phenobarb was all she was given.

2:55

And her seizures became more severe as she grew.

3:00

She got to be a larger person,

3:04

and very difficult to handle this.

3:07

My parents had difficulty with that.

3:10

So, and then she,

3:14

the seizures got so severe

3:16

that they just could not manage it,

3:18

so they took her to a state institution in Raleigh.

3:20

State hospital, and that's where she stayed until she died.

3:28

Now we were allowed to visit her like only once a month

3:34

because they did not want her,

3:39

they wanted that to be her home.

3:42

They didn't want her to want to go home, back home with us.

3:44

So if our visits would be more frequent,

3:48

she would get more used to our being there,

3:50

and miss us more I guess.

3:53

And then she contracted tuberculosis,

3:55

while she was there, and died at the age of 24.

3:58

I can't remember how old she was when she went there.

4:03

I would say she was a teenager, like 14, 15.

4:07

So, she was there that long.

4:11

So I mean, I think it was '53 that she died there?

4:14

I don't remember, but she was 24 when she died.

4:21

And our mother, who played a large part in our family,

4:28

she was our, H. Lee's, our father's partner in many ways.

4:30

They worked together, she worked at the studio.

4:38

She helped him with the photographs.

4:41

She helped him with the sittings,

4:45

Would help pose the brides and their dresses,

4:47

and their veils and fix their hair,

4:51

and help them get their makeup just right.

4:53

And then she would also

4:55

retouch the films by hand.

4:59

She would also color tint photographs

5:04

to make them look like color with oil.

5:08

And then later in years, she learned how to do

5:11

the heavy oil application to the large portraits

5:13

that looked like, more like paintings

5:16

than they did photographs.

5:18

So, they were quite a team.

5:22

-

What was your mother's name?

5:24

-

Mabel Elizabeth Gerald, was her maiden name.

5:26

And of course Waters, but that was,

5:31

I have my Elizabeth from my mom,

5:34

Mary Elizabeth is from Mabel Elizabeth.

5:37

-

How did they come to meet?

5:40

-

Oh, that's an interesting story, rather comical.

5:42

She was actually trained to be a nurse.

5:48

And she was doing some training there in Lexington Hospital,

5:51

and our father's mother, Gertrude Waters,

5:55

was in the hospital for pneumonia?

6:00

And they were in the same room.

6:03

And I guess it was a warm, summer day

6:07

and they had a fan in the room.

6:09

The fan needed to be plugged in.

6:10

Well, both of them got under the bed at one time,

6:13

to plug this fan in, and that's where they met.

6:16

(laughing)

6:18

And the rest is history.

6:20

(laughing)

6:21

I think that's a cute story.

6:23

-

Were they both from Lexington?

6:26

-

No,

6:28

oh gee, where was she from?

6:30

He was from South Carolina, wasn't he?

6:32

'Cause he was from like Greer, Gaffney, that area.

6:34

And he moved to Erlanger with his mom and dad,

6:38

in the thriving Erlanger mill days.

6:44

And she was, she grew up in the orphanage in Thomasville.

6:48

Because her parents died like a year apart,

6:55

while she was still small.

6:57

She had older brothers and sisters who didn't have,

6:59

I think there were only like three

7:02

that actually went to the orphanage, so that's--

7:03

-

Mill's home.

7:06

-

Excuse me?

7:07

-

Mill's home.

7:08

-

Mill's home, okay, but that's in Thomasville.

7:09

-

Okay.

7:11

-

And that's where she graduated from high school there,

7:12

and then she went into nurse's training.

7:14

And where they came from was...

7:18

Wilmington area?

7:22

-

Wilmington area.

-

Wilmington area, that's where her family was from.

7:23

And that's really pretty much

7:27

all I know about the background.

7:28

I'm working on that, but.

7:31

-

Between them meeting and

7:33

H. Lee Waters getting interested

7:40

in photography and setting up his studio in Lexington,

7:41

how did that come together?

7:45

-

Well actually, our dad was an assistant

7:47

or like an apprentice to another photographer,

7:51

who was in the same building at 118 1/2?

7:53

-

118 1/2.

7:58

-

118 1/2 Main Street.

7:59

-

The whole top floor.

8:01

-

The whole top floor of that building

8:02

on the corner of Second Avenue and Main Street.

8:03

And I can't remember the gentleman's first name?

8:08

-

Hitchcock.

8:10

-

Hitchcock was the last name.

8:11

-

Yeah.

8:12

-

Mr. Hitchcock was a photographer,

8:13

and he kind of took our dad under his wing

8:15

and offered him an assistantship or an apprenticeship

8:18

and he loved it so much,

8:22

that he wanted to be a photographer on his own.

8:25

So when Mr. Hitchcock retired, which was shortly after that.

8:30

-

About a year.

8:35

-

About a year after that, my father's mother

8:36

helped him buy the studio.

8:41

So that the two of them financially went together

8:44

and bought the studio and they--

8:47

-

The financial documents of that transaction is down here

8:48

in the archives, about right here.

8:50

-

So, all the equipment and,

8:55

now of course that top floor they rented.

8:56

They didn't own the building,

8:58

but he rented

8:59

the dealership of the photography business for her.

9:02

He bought the entire business from him.

9:05

-

Right, so all the equipment?

9:08

-

Oh, everything.

9:10

All the cameras and everything.

9:11

Dark room, chemicals.

9:13

So, it was already pretty much set up

9:15

and then he grew from there.

9:17

-

Did you ever work with your father in his studio?

9:23

-

Yes, I did.

9:26

I can't say I spent numerous hours there as a small child,

9:29

but I remember going up and just enjoying being

9:34

in the atmosphere of the photographs

9:36

and all the hustle bustle of taking the sittings,

9:38

down to developing the negatives, to printing.

9:43

Drying the photographs, proofing.

9:48

And when I got to be in like, junior high school,

9:50

I would actually, over the holidays,

9:54

like Christmas and Easter.

9:57

Anytime I had free time, I would go up and help them,

9:58

and they would give me an allowance accordingly.

10:01

But I would,

10:05

I was kind of a combination of receptionist, cashier.

10:06

I would proof the photographs in our front window

10:12

out in front of the building in the old proof frames

10:15

that you use to use with the negatives and the proof paper.

10:18

You put it under the sun and that's how you got your proofs.

10:21

So that was one of my jobs.

10:25

Then I would dry the glossy prints on the big drum dryer.

10:29

Take those off and put 'em under glass with weights

10:35

to make them flat, because they come out

10:39

and they're a little bit curled.

10:42

-

Right.

10:43

I would also do dry mounting.

10:44

Putting the dry mounting paper on the back

10:47

of the photograph, place it on a larger format mat,

10:49

and using that dry mounting machine, we'd do that.

10:55

And that took a little practice to get that straight,

10:59

but I learned, yeah I learned how to do that.

11:02

And that's probably about all I did,

11:06

but I, yeah and I would work.

11:08

I would come home from college

11:11

and work that during the holidays up there

11:12

to help them with.

11:14

Because it was a mad rush at Christmas time.

11:16

I mean it was a lot of business, so they needed some help.

11:18

-

Was there walk-in business or for the most part,

11:23

did people make appointments with your father?

11:26

-

There was some walk-in business, there was some.

11:29

Well, he had a showcase down the steps, okay?

11:32

This was all second floor,

11:36

and down these long straight steps,

11:38

the main entrance to the studio there was a showcase

11:41

on either side of the stairwell with an awning over it

11:44

and he would maybe every couple of weeks

11:47

change the photographs.

11:50

So people just walking on the streets would see these

11:51

and say, 'Oh, maybe I want my photograph taken,

11:54

that looks really cool.

11:57

This looks good.'

11:58

So they'd go up and they would talk to him

11:59

and when you walk into the showroom,

12:02

he had photographs everywhere.

12:04

Framed and unframed, so that's where he got,

12:06

I'd say a lot of his business he got from walk-ins.

12:10

But then, word-of-mouth,

12:13

this person would tell their mother or father

12:16

or their children or their cousins.

12:19

And the word got around that, you know,

12:22

this is where to go for good photographs.

12:24

So, some of that was word-of-mouth.

12:26

Others were, we'd call them on the phone

12:28

to ask them for appointments.

12:31

-

When you were working for him,

12:35

did he talk about his time making films in other communities

12:36

in the 30s and early 40s?

12:41

-

You know, he really did not.

12:43

I don't understand that and I read that question

12:45

and thinking, he was so concentrated on what he was doing

12:47

at the studio at that time, that was kind of the past.

12:53

Until,

12:57

the 70s,

12:59

which I was not around then,

13:01

but then he'd started talking to us about

13:03

taking the films back to the communities,

13:05

showing them at the civic clubs

13:07

and then the civic clubs would buy them

13:09

for the community from him.

13:11

So, he wanted to see that they got to where they should be,

13:13

that these people would see them again.

13:16

That they weren't just sitting in our garage forever.

13:18

Well, that was probably his first step of sharing

13:22

those photographs with families and generations to come.

13:26

-

I had a quick question before we move on.

13:33

-

Sure.

13:35

-

Since you were working for your father,

13:36

can you talk a little bit about

13:38

how he interacted with his clients?

13:40

What you remember about how he worked with his clients?

13:44

I think that it might shed some light

13:48

on how he interacted with the people--

13:50

-

Well, he was just a very friendly person.

13:51

He liked people.

13:54

He liked talking to people.

13:56

So it was very easy for him because of his personality,

13:58

to approach someone and for them to approach him.

14:02

And in the studio he would talk to them about,

14:05

'Well, now what kind of picture do you want taken?

14:08

Do you want your child's picture?

14:10

Would you like a very casual attire?'

14:12

You know, 'You want serious ones?'

14:17

You know, depending on the subject like wedding pictures.

14:19

The brides liked to look very sophisticated,

14:22

happy but not laughing, you know.

14:25

But, he had the kind of personality

14:28

that he loved taking children's pictures.

14:30

Loved that, because he was kind of a big kid himself.

14:34

He liked to be a little goofy with the kids

14:38

and get them laughing and he could do that.

14:40

Some of the expressions that he got

14:42

from children were phenomenal.

14:43

If you see those prints.

14:45

But as far as adults,

14:48

they felt very comfortable just talking to him.

14:50

If a lot of times when he was,

14:52

when mother and he were taking the photographs,

14:54

they would just talk to them.

14:56

And then he would be snapping away.

14:58

They weren't even, they weren't really posing at times

15:00

because you get a more natural look,

15:04

if they're talking to you.

15:06

But--

15:09

-

He was a charmer, he appeared professional.

15:09

-

Yeah, he was a charmer I think so.

15:11

You could say that.

15:13

But he had no problem interacting,

15:16

and people felt very comfortable with him.

15:18

-

So did he, at what point did you first learn

15:22

about his movies of local people?

15:25

-

Golly.

15:31

It was probably after I graduated from college that I even,

15:34

that even was a subject of conversation.

15:39

Because he never really showed this to us

15:44

as we were growing up.

15:47

That was kind of his business at that time

15:51

but then when I was born in 1942,

15:53

he promised my mother that he would stay home.

15:57

He would no longer be on the road,

15:59

so I guess you could blame me for that.

16:00

(laughing)

16:02

For him not taking them any longer,

16:03

but that was on the road now.

16:06

That was traveling, and he would be gone most of the week.

16:07

Come home, and edit,

16:11

get the films processed

16:15

and then when he would receive them,

16:16

he would edit them and then take them back to the towns

16:18

so he was on the road a lot, between 1936 and '42.

16:21

But you see, I don't remember that because I wasn't there.

16:28

I wasn't born.

16:31

All I know is after he stayed home, he was with me.

16:32

And, like I said, I really never knew about these

16:39

until probably the 60s.

16:41

Then he didn't, really didn't talk

16:46

about them that much then.

16:47

It's just that he was, he had them,

16:48

I knew they were in the garage,

16:50

but I didn't really know what they were?

16:51

Or how important they were at that point?

16:54

And you know as you're growing up, what your parents do,

16:56

doesn't quite seem as important as it really is, you know.

17:00

It's like, it's not that special.

17:05

It's just he's being a father and he's supporting us.

17:06

So at that point, neither my brother or I had any idea,

17:10

the impact this was gonna make on the history of Lexington

17:14

and all these cities that, the towns that he filmed.

17:18

-

Later on, did he ever talk about

17:25

when he was going back to the small towns in the 1970s

17:30

and screening the films again.

17:33

Did he ever talk with you about

17:35

how he came up with this idea to start traveling around?

17:37

-

You mean to show them, afterwards, after the whole--

17:42

-

No, the initial idea to even make them?

17:45

-

Ah, no, no not to me.

17:47

He possibly did to my brother, but.

17:49

This was before my time,

17:53

and maybe he thought there was no reason to share

17:56

that with me until I got to be older,

17:58

and that's what happened.

18:00

I was out of college at the time

18:02

and it was explained to me then what he had done

18:04

and like I said, it didn't affect me at all

18:11

as far as him being away because I didn't know that.

18:12

I didn't.

18:15

All I knew is he was around when I was a baby

18:16

and he kept his promise.

18:19

As a matter of fact, he was on the road

18:20

when my mother when into labor with me.

18:23

And he was trying to get back before I was born

18:27

and he got back.

18:31

He returned two minutes near the delivery room,

18:31

before I was born, he returned at 2'o clock.

18:36

I was born at 2:02,

18:38

so he did make it back.

18:40

So, but he did continue making films,

18:42

but mostly of Lexington and family at that point.

18:46

He just didn't do any traveling

18:50

to other towns to make films.

18:53

-

And I wanna ask you about that, in a minute,

18:56

but also, once you did start talking to him about these,

18:57

did you get different stories from him

19:02

versus your mother regarding the films?

19:04

-

No, I don't remember my mother talking about them at all.

19:07

-

Oh, really?

19:10

-

Do you?

19:11

I don't think she ever chimed in on that.

19:12

And, as a matter of fact,

19:16

I know with that generation sometimes you

19:18

have to really pull to get information from them.

19:20

Because that's just what he did, it's the way it was,

19:23

he wasn't intending to make a huge impact on the world.

19:28

He was supporting his family,

19:33

he was trying to get through the end of the Depression

19:35

and make it work for the family.

19:40

Even though he had to be on the road,

19:42

he was just a very creative person and...

19:44

I don't know if he knew of other itinerant movie makers?

19:48

He possibly did through reading magazines and newspapers

19:53

but, this was, his ideas of going to the towns

19:56

and the way he edited films, that was pretty creative.

20:02

He was just a creative individual.

20:06

And, the fact that how he advertised it,

20:09

once he had taken the films, he would place a big poster

20:13

or placard on top of his car with braces.

20:17

And he would ride around town with this poster saying,

20:21

'See yourself on the big screen!'

20:25

You know with certain dates,

20:27

and he would also have a microphone hooked up

20:29

with a speaker on the car and he would be talking

20:33

as he was driving around town advertising this feature

20:36

and the fact that they could come,

20:40

when they come to the theaters to see that movie,

20:41

they would also see themselves on the big screen.

20:43

And that attracted a lot of attention.

20:46

-

And you've said earlier before we did the interview,

20:51

I'd like to touch on this again.

20:57

When he came back he brought that kind of big personality

20:57

back with him and applied it, but at home.

21:00

Can you tell us about some of the ways

21:03

he followed events in Lexington

21:05

and how you might've been involved in some of those things?

21:07

-

Okay.

21:09

I don't think anything went on in Lexington

21:11

that was of any size at all that he didn't want a part of it

21:14

and he didn't want to record it.

21:18

And to...

21:20

save that for the archives.

21:25

In his mind, his photographs were his archives.

21:27

He wanted to record and,

21:31

the images of the town and the events.

21:36

Especially, like when the servicemen would be bused off

21:39

to their, wherever they were going to be stationed

21:46

and trained for the war.

21:48

He would come to the depot and take a picture,

21:50

a group picture of that group of men going that day.

21:53

-

Sometimes, it's on the steps of the courthouse.

21:57

-

Yeah, and the exhibit that the Davidson County Museum

21:59

had of...

22:06

I don't know what they called it. The Veteran's Gallery?

22:09

Lots of veterans brought in photographs

22:14

and many of them were taken by our dad

22:17

and there are many photographs that he'd taken

22:19

of the servicemen before they left Lexington and possibly...

22:21

An observation I made by looking at these photographs,

22:26

this could have been, for some of them,

22:29

the last picture that was taken of them.

22:31

-

There was a large billboard,

22:37

where the Lexington State Bank is now,

22:39

And had the names of every one of the draftees.

22:43

Hundreds of names up there.

22:45

Within, three or four big panels, giant billboard.

22:48

But it was the military honor roll.

22:51

They were any military of any kind for any length of time,

22:54

their name was on that list.

22:57

And Kathryn, I think at one time,

22:59

I think she had more than we did.

23:01

-

Very possible.

23:04

But anything that was going on like the photographs,

23:06

I don't think he had any movies of High Rock Dam,

23:09

did he make all still photographs of that of High Rock Dam.

23:15

He documented that from the time the ground was broken up

23:19

through the completion of it.

23:22

-

The little museum he has has the very camera.

23:24

-

Mhm.

23:26

Oh, furniture factory parties.

23:29

Any kind of event that he could record that

23:35

and save it for that particular company

23:39

or that set of people.

23:42

I remember one instance that

23:44

and I use to go with him on many,

23:46

to many of these parties and just carry a bag

23:48

or just kinda go along for the fun of it

23:52

and just be with our dad.

23:54

'Cuz it was a lot of fun, he was just a fun person and,

23:56

(chuckles)

24:00

One time we went to, we were on the stage

24:01

of Lexington Senior High, which was at that time

24:04

on which avenue?

24:08

The big?

24:09

-

That was State Street.

24:10

-

State Street, okay.

24:11

And we were on stage and there was a Christmas program.

24:14

Santa Claus was in a huge box and my job,

24:18

for that little assistantship was to hold these two flashes.

24:23

Photography, photograph flashes

24:29

that you use for taking photographs.

24:32

But this wasn't taking a photograph, this was,

24:34

the purpose of these flashes was to blind momentarily,

24:37

the audience.

24:40

So they could not really see Santa Claus

24:41

popping out of the box.

24:44

And that's, when I got the signal from him,

24:45

to push the flash button, that's what I did.

24:48

So, that was just a fun thing to do, you know.

24:51

(laughing)

24:54

So you know, different things like that that just,

24:55

you know, sometimes some of these memories are so deep

24:56

that as I'm talking with you,

25:00

they're hidden until they start coming to the surface,

25:04

just like in a computer.

25:07

It's not right at the top until

25:08

you start digging a little deeper.

25:11

-

That's the emotional roller coasters,

25:12

-

Yeah,

25:14

-

Going through while you're saying somethin'.

25:17

Plenty of things we never knew.

25:19

He was kind of a genius in his own right, he was, I tell ya,

25:23

if you dug deeper.

25:27

-

Many people have noted that your father filmed

25:31

in black communities in the towns he visited

25:35

when he was making his movies of local people.

25:38

Almost as regularly as he filmed in the white communities.

25:42

Did he ever share with you this aspect of his work

25:46

or what that might have meant maybe in a larger sense?

25:48

-

You know, I can't say that he shared it with me.

25:54

I became aware of this as my brother and I

25:56

were unearthing many of the photographs that he had taken.

26:00

This has been in the last 10 years,

26:08

we've gone through so many photographs

26:10

and he never really talked about,

26:13

'Oh, I went into a black community today.'

26:16

He never mentioned that.

26:19

He never said black, he just said, 'I went to this party'

26:21

or this event.

26:24

There just isn't a lot in my memory

26:27

about him talking about that.

26:29

It was just natural for him to do it

26:30

because they were people and it was an event

26:33

and he wanted to be a part of it.

26:37

And he was invited possibly because they felt a connection

26:39

to him with his personality and the fact he not there

26:44

to be intimidating or to be...

26:49

I don't know.

26:55

-

He wasn't exploiting the people.

26:56

-

No, he wasn't exploiting them,

26:57

it was just, they liked being on camera.

26:59

And probably, possibly maybe not a lot of black people

27:02

had cameras or at least video cameras, film cameras.

27:06

But you can see by looking at the photographs

27:11

that they're really happy to have him there.

27:13

You'd never guess that he was a white person

27:18

taking pictures of a black community.

27:19

-

Some of the greatest smiles

27:22

I've ever seen come from the black community.

27:23

-

Yes, they're just happy.

27:25

Happy to be on, in the pictures.

27:26

(pages flipping)

27:38

-

I wonder about his studio photography business,

27:41

and black communities in Lexington, North Carolina.

27:45

Did you find that he was photographing black communities,

27:49

black families, just as much as early as the 1930s, 40s?

27:55

-

Oh yes, yes.

28:00

We found that in our dig,

28:02

that many many black families and reunions

28:07

and birthday parties

28:11

and church reunions, like outside churches,

28:13

you could see the church in the background and just like,

28:19

it was like Homecoming Day for the church.

28:23

You could see the whole community of the church

28:26

in front of the church.

28:29

And he was invited to do that.

28:31

Not that he really searched that out,

28:32

but once people found out that he was

28:34

an excellent photographer,

28:37

they didn't, you know.

28:39

That's what they wanted was a group picture.

28:40

Or families would come in,

28:43

like grandparents and grandchildren and mothers and fathers

28:45

and have a group picture taken or just individuals.

28:49

Like, servicemen.

28:51

We found a lot of service men's photographs.

28:53

Black and white.

28:56

-

Right.

28:57

-

So, it's that he had a really good business both.

28:58

In both aspects.

29:01

-

As time moved on, you had mentioned earlier

29:08

that he and your mother would go to workshops

29:12

to get new techniques and adopt new techniques,

29:16

can you talk about that a little bit?

29:22

-

Yes, I even went to one with them, or maybe more than one,

29:24

I remember one that specifically,

29:30

I was probably 10, nine, 10 or 11.

29:32

We went to Chicago and it was a convention.

29:36

What I meant by workshops, it was probably workshops

29:40

within the convention.

29:44

And they would have on stage a professional photographer

29:47

posing and showing different ways, different techniques

29:51

of taking photographs, different ways of styling them.

29:53

Styling the fashion and the hair and how to light

29:58

and how to just basically take better photographs.

30:02

And I think each time they went to one of those workshops

30:07

and conventions they brought back a lot of knowledge.

30:11

Because they were serious,

30:14

they didn't go just for a good time.

30:15

They went to research, they went to be educated.

30:17

-

One time he was president of

30:21

the North Carolina's Photographer's Association.

30:22

-

Oh, I had forgot about that, yeah.

30:24

-

When was that?

30:26

-

I'm not sure of the dates--

30:28

-

I would say it's probably in the 50s, yeah.

30:29

But, he also gained a many friendships that way

30:35

of other photographers and you know as an artist.

30:38

Artists learn from other artists

30:42

and you can't reinvent the wheel,

30:45

you've got to share your ideas

30:47

and you can't be selfish about that,

30:49

because you can take what that person taught you

30:52

and do that as well as go a step further.

30:55

And whatever was out there to learn,

30:59

he wanted to learn more about photography

31:02

and how to get the best portraits

31:06

and the best photographs that he could take.

31:07

And again our mother, went to workshops to learn

31:10

how to do the color tinting and how to retouch.

31:14

So she was willing to study this to make it better.

31:19

It wasn't a fly-by-night operation.

31:22

It was a lifetime commitment to this,

31:26

I wouldn't say it was really a job for him?

31:31

It was entertaining for him.

31:35

He just loved it so much.

31:37

It was a passion, and yes, it was hard work.

31:40

Weddings, especially.

31:43

Weddings, I went to many weddings with him,

31:46

and that was really hard work.

31:49

That's very difficult.

31:51

But he just loved what he did.

31:54

And what he made, financially, was kind of,

31:57

the tip of the iceberg for him.

32:03

There's so much enjoyment and pleasure from it too.

32:07

-

Right.

32:10

-

I'm not saying that he didn't have bad days,

32:11

we all have those.

32:13

But, basically that was fun for him, to be a photographer,

32:15

and I think that if we can all say that,

32:19

that our job is fun, that's a blessing in itself.

32:21

-

Did he have any hobbies or passions outside

32:27

of film and photography that you remember,

32:31

just thinking about H. Lee Waters, at the end

32:34

of the day or on the weekends, not doing his--

32:38

-

Well, he did like to ride his motorcycle.

32:41

He had many motorcycles in his time.

32:45

And we're not talking about the big Harleys,

32:48

we're talking about little Hondas, that didn't go real fast.

32:50

And you could ask anybody in the community

32:56

that remembers him at all, they remember this little icon

32:58

riding around in a 3-piece suit on his motorcycle.

33:01

He didn't wear jeans, he didn't wear casual shirts,

33:07

he would wear a 3-piece suit, riding on the motorcycle.

33:10

(laughs)

33:14

So he really enjoyed that.

33:15

-

Yeah, in the old days.

33:16

-

Yeah, and he liked to go visit

33:18

the orphanage home in Lexington.

33:22

And he would, I would go with him many times to do that.

33:26

And he would take, and this is all things

33:30

I'm just starting to remember.

33:34

He would buy huge 16mm films of feature films

33:37

that the children would enjoy.

33:43

He would take his projector and have a movie night,

33:44

either outside or inside for the orphanage.

33:47

And he would, he just loved entertaining the orphans.

33:51

He would even take some of them some days.

33:55

I would go with him or he would go with them

33:58

and he would take them on rides in the little scooter

33:59

or Honda that he had.

34:02

In those days we didn't have to have helmets,

34:06

we could ride on the gas tank, we could ride behind him.

34:07

You know, it's just, it just wasn't the same.

34:11

But, probably not real safe, but that's the way it was.

34:14

He loved the church and one of his hobbies for the church

34:20

he thought was his mission was to distribute tracts.

34:24

Are you familiar with what tracts are?

34:28

-

Tracks with a T?

34:31

-

Yes, with the T?

-

Yes, he would distribute those

34:34

throughout the town actually.

34:38

The train station, the bus station, the post office.

34:40

Where else he would have done that?

34:45

-

He'd go on an excursion train sometimes,

34:46

made sure everybody on that train got one.

34:47

-

Oh yeah, he would hand them out, you know.

34:48

Or he would leave them, he was just a very spiritual person.

34:51

He and our mother both were very spiritual.

34:56

He loved the church and he loved to do things

34:59

for the church, so yes he did have hobbies.

35:01

He did have a lot of interests

35:03

other than photographs and photography.

35:05

All of that has to do with the complete person and,

35:09

and that has to do with how kind he was to people.

35:17

And how he felt that it was important

35:21

to treat people equally and to not discriminate.

35:23

-

I can remember him taking gift baskets

35:26

at Christmas for these needy homes.

35:28

One young boy, he'd start a friendship with them,

35:32

actually go to church with him, and the little boy

35:35

didn't have any church clothes,

35:36

so our dad bought him a church suit.

35:37

And take him to church with him.

35:40

And just various little things like that, little tidbits,

35:43

little hiccups along the way, little comma here

35:45

and a semicolon there and something in parentheses

35:48

after what his main body of movement is.

35:52

These little incidences showed the depth of his character.

35:54

-

And he really made a living from doing things

36:00

for other people, doing things for the community,

36:03

documenting the community, giving back to the community

36:05

by screening those films.

36:08

-

Yes he did.

36:14

(chuckles)

36:15

-

Did you have movie night at your house?

36:17

-

Oh yes.

36:19

-

What was movie night like?

36:20

(laughing)

36:21

-

Well movie night was when he took

36:22

those same kinds of feature films,

36:24

I remember one specifically was called

36:26

'Shriek in the Night', it was a horror movie.

36:28

Now nothing like our horror movies today,

36:31

but at our age, it was a horror movie, it was scary,

36:33

but he would have movie night for the neighborhood.

36:38

We would advertise it with posters on telephone poles.

36:41

Come to 405 for movie night.

36:46

We would make homemade ice cream.

36:49

We had a swing set.

36:51

It was just a total entertainment night.

36:55

So we'd pop popcorn or we'd serve the ice cream

36:57

while they're watching this movie in the backyard now.

37:00

In the summertime, it was only summer.

37:03

And I can remember one time when he showed that

37:08

'Shriek in the Night', Tom did something really strange

37:11

but I can't remember exactly what it was

37:16

but he tried to scare everybody.

37:18

I mean we're sitting there like,

37:20

he's eight years older than we are.

37:21

And here are these little five, six, seven year olds

37:24

and we're you know scared of this movie

37:28

and he comes around and spooks everybody.

37:30

I remember, you don't remember that do you?

37:32

-

No I don't remember.

37:34

-

Well I do!

Because we just jumped out of our skin!

37:36

And it was just fun, it was fun growing up in that household

37:38

because he always had something fun going on,

37:42

we would even have Circus Night.

37:44

So all night, now you don't remember this Tom,

37:48

because this was after he left.

37:50

But all my friends in the neighborhood

37:53

we'd come up with some special talent that we had,

37:54

or some special thing that we wanted to do a circus act

37:58

from trapeze to ballet to tap

38:01

to acrobats to being a clown or whatever.

38:05

So we'd have Circus Night.

38:08

He would provide the spotlight and it was after dark.

38:10

He'd provide the spotlight, he had an arc light spotlight

38:13

-

Right.

38:18

-

And he would play music.

38:18

He would also do drum rolls because he was musical.

38:21

Oh I forgot about this.

38:25

He was, he was a drummer and he played the vibraphone

38:27

and ah.

38:32

-

Marimba.

38:34

-

Marimba, yes.

38:35

So and trumpet, didn't he play the trumpet?

38:36

-

Yes, he played the trumpet.

38:38

-

Okay, so he was very musical.

38:39

-

He was in one of the earliest to bang the pans, he was.

38:41

-

So he would accompany this circus,

38:44

along with some '78 records and he would put the spotlight

38:47

on us and you know the drum roll when I got, you know,

38:52

I was on the trapeze,

38:55

but certainly wasn't anything dangerous,

38:56

but he made it sound dangerous.

38:58

(laughs)

38:59

And I think he enjoyed it as much or more than we did.

39:01

This is just the little kid in him,

39:04

and we were always doing something fun.

39:07

We had lots of animals, we had chickens and roosters

39:11

and ducks and cats and dogs and fish and I think we had

39:14

one goat, so he loved taking care of animals too,

39:21

he loved animals and he's passed that onto us

39:25

and I love animals so, it's just, you know,

39:29

it's hard.

39:36

(light sobbing)

39:37

-

Sounds like you two had a wonderful childhood.

39:39

(coughing blocks out dialogue)

39:45

-

The top window right there in front of the building,

39:55

where he made the proofs.

39:57

And at night he would set up a projector

40:00

and then when the projected across the street

40:02

on a giant screen over the building

40:04

over next door over there.

40:07

Not next store but across the street.

40:09

Got permission from the building owner to put

40:10

this giant screen up there and then

40:12

showed it right across Main Street and he did that for

40:15

I dunno how long til the police made him quit it.

40:17

(laughing)

40:20

-

Before the traffic noticed.

40:22

-

That's great. People standing in the streets down there,

40:24

parked their cars, and come right to the outdoor theater.

40:26

-

Uh huh.

40:29

-

There sure was to a lot of people there.

40:30

Another one of the films was, "Ten Laps To Go,"

40:33

I think we still may have one of those, sure that we might.

40:37

-

A what?

40:39

Oh, we probably do, and then he use to show,

40:40

what were the funny movies?

40:43

Did he show Abbott and Costello?

40:44

I think he owned one of those.

40:46

-

Felix the Cat.

40:48

-

And Felix the cat, the cartoon.

40:49

Some of the original Mickey Mouse.

40:51

So, he would purchase those and show them movie night,

40:53

(laughter)

40:57

for our pleasure.

40:58

-

Was he a movie goer?

41:00

-

Do you remember him

41:02

-

No.

-

going to the theater?

41:03

-

That was before your time.

41:04

We went to theaters a lot.

41:06

-

Oh, did he?

41:07

-

Oh yeah.

41:08

He bought the most of 'em, well once,

41:09

in a particular time period for a contest

41:11

and won the pass to the theater for a year.

41:14

-

Oh wow.

41:16

-

And we'd see just about every movie that

41:17

that came on the screen.

41:19

-

I did not know that, I did not know that.

41:20

I guess I was his entertainment after I was born.

41:21

-

I guess so.

41:24

(laughter)

41:25

Can you tell us a little bit about your mother,

41:27

she was such an integral part of the photography business

41:29

and as you said earlier they were partners in many ways.

41:34

What was she like as a person?

41:38

Did she have hobbies outside of being a mother

41:40

and working with your father?

41:44

-

She did.

41:48

But I didn't realize they were hobbies

41:49

until I was in high school or college.

41:51

Her hobby was me, growing up I guess.

41:57

'Cuz I was eight years behind him.

42:01

I do remember when she'd bring,

42:05

when she was learning how to do,

42:08

doing the color tinted photographs.

42:10

She would stay with me at home and do that at home.

42:13

I remember sitting there with her as a toddler,

42:17

or I was a six, seven, eight years old and she would,

42:20

She would give me another print and let me do it too.

42:23

So I would color the prints right along with her

42:28

and that's how I got interested in my art career.

42:32

And she also loved flower-arranging.

42:38

She loved growing African Violets.

42:41

She had one whole room with lots of light and natural light

42:44

in it that she grew African Violets, just award winners.

42:48

She even-

42:54

-

Cross pollinated.

42:56

-

cross pollinated ones to come up with new ones.

42:56

I mean that was a hobby during all this time.

42:59

Plants and, especially African Violets and flower-arranging.

43:02

And then she in the 70s she took a painting course

43:07

from a local artist and did paintings not from photographs,

43:11

but just paintings.

43:15

So, she was a true artist in every way.

43:17

A very low-key person.

43:21

She would not be, how we put it, she was gregarious,

43:25

she was friendly but not as outgoing as he was.

43:27

Yeah I think that generation, the mother and the wife,

43:32

weren't quite, didn't feel as free to be as outgoing

43:36

as they are now, because they weren't as worldly.

43:39

But she, she really enjoyed what she was doing

43:44

at the studio.

43:47

But as far as her personality,

43:50

she was just a real sweet lady.

43:52

-

She was.

43:54

-

Never went into nursing after they got married.

43:55

Because shortly after they were married,

43:59

did he go into the business before they were married?

44:02

-

He went into the business in 1926.

44:04

-

Yeah, okay so maybe he went into business shortly

44:07

before they were married so she assisted him.

44:10

-

Married Christmas day.

44:13

-

Yes they were married on December 25th.

44:14

But she was pretty much the backbone of that studio

44:19

as far as keeping him organized,

44:22

you know, she really was good at that.

44:28

-

Did she keep the books?

44:31

-

No, she didn't keep the books, did she?

44:32

-

Think they both did.

44:34

-

Yeah, I don't remember that.

44:36

I don't.

44:39

We were having such a good time, I didn't go into all that.

44:41

(laughs)

44:43

Why would I have to worry about the books?

44:45

-

He did some very striking work at High Rock Dam

44:54

in the 1920s and obviously when he came back to Lexington.

44:58

Did he ever show any of his still photographs

45:02

around town at all?

45:04

-

Oh yeah, yeah a whole box of them.

45:06

Sent them over to Kathryn there on the dam project

45:08

that they've on display on at the museum,

45:11

and they got misplaced or something,

45:14

I don't know what happened to 'em.

45:16

But uh, they was quite a few, he made over 100 pictures,

45:18

over a period of two and a half years.

45:22

Parts of 26, 27, 28,

45:24

and I can still remember the print number,

45:28

106, 107, 108 so he made well over 100...

45:30

And he'd go down there once a month

45:35

and then take a series of them.

45:36

Almost didn't get back from one of them down there.

45:39

Started snowing while he was down there.

45:42

He got stuck in the snow and had to start walking back

45:43

to Lexington and there were no road sides to be seen,

45:46

it was all white.

45:49

So he found the railroad tracks,

45:50

and he knew the railroad track went to our house,

45:51

back in Lexington.

45:53

So, he wanted to go find our house right then.

45:55

-

That's funny.

45:57

-

Well, after an hour or more of debating,

45:57

which was further on down than our house was about,

46:00

but he followed the track, he came across a farmhouse

46:03

and knocked on the door and asked them

46:07

if he could use the phone, I don't think they had a phone,

46:09

but he had asked them,

46:12

well they asked him to stay the night,

46:15

he had to get out of there in the morning

46:17

and eventually got his car back.

46:19

I don't know all the follow up details but,

46:23

If they hadn't taken him in he might have been caught

46:28

in that blizzard and that'd been the end of him,

46:30

and basically our studio.

46:32

But to hear him tell it was rather, not life taking,

46:36

but life experience, he would say, 'he'd go through it once

46:41

but I wouldn't wanna go through it twice.'

46:44

-

He would have examples of his photographs

46:49

in the windows of the shop front below?

46:53

-

Sometimes, sometimes.

46:56

-

Okay.

46:58

-

I don't know if he ever made full display

46:59

of the High Rock Dam project,

47:00

but he was working for Alcoa.

47:03

He would take the films and made pictures of it,

47:07

put it in albums once in a while show them.

47:10

The past scenes of construction throughout town.

47:12

He mentioned the textile mills when we came to Madison,

47:18

there was a number of them, what we call a cotton mill,

47:21

textile, and we were obsessed with furniture factories

47:23

there were about six or eight of those.

47:27

There were also about six or eight textile mills.

47:29

-

That's right I forgot about those.

47:31

Especially Erlanger.

47:32

-

Yeah, that's what brought him up here.

47:33

Job production line was fierce so they put all three of them

47:37

to work up here in Erlanger.

47:40

My dad worked for 50 cents a day.

47:42

And my grandmother soaking labels and his dad worked

47:45

on the machines, the looms, and was a general technician

47:50

as he, well, but they were totally involved in the community

47:54

of Erlanger there.

47:59

And he brought me pictures of the Midway

48:02

up through Erlanger, when they'd have picnic day

48:05

or whatever.

48:06

-

Yeah as a teenager he was interested in photography.

48:07

-

Yeah his first black room, his first dark room

48:10

in the basement of the house they lived in

48:15

which was second house off the corner

48:17

of Highway 52 North, the old Weston Road.

48:20

And my grandfather, Thomas Bernard Waters,

48:28

he bargained for the house, but there were,

48:31

trying to get the Waters family up here,

48:34

They built a second house for one

48:39

of the top management people, maybe the superintendent.

48:40

He said, "No, that's the house I want," and they bickered,

48:43

they argued back and forth a little bit

48:48

and finally they got that house,

48:49

that was actually built by the management and he got it.

48:51

And that's where he set up his first dark room

48:54

in the basement of that house.

48:55

They had a little set player piano

48:57

and he'd play piano too by the way, as well as the drums

48:59

and the marimba, vibraphone and xylophone,

49:01

but uh, he could play the piano.

49:06

And I remember he use to play it

49:08

along with the hymns at church.

49:10

Here not too many years ago and

49:13

they'd start playing one tune and I don't know,

49:18

K F G, whatever it was,

49:23

-

He would transpose.

49:25

-

Transpose.

-

Yeah, just natural.

49:27

-

And the music man was absolutely amazed at this old man

49:28

with the music with all these transposed

49:31

from one key to the next.

49:34

He would just go right on like nothing happened.

49:36

Made new music, did it well.

49:38

-

He could probably describe this as Renaissance man?

49:41

Yeah?

49:44

-

Yeah.

49:45

-

Pretty good description of him.

49:46

-

I would say.

49:48

-

Did he and your mom keep up going to the conferences

49:54

and the workshops over time after you or after you left?

49:59

-

You know I really don't know that,

50:05

I think I remember them occasionally going to one

50:07

and some of them were just like workshops,

50:11

they weren't the conventions.

50:13

Some of them were just the workshops.

50:14

Maybe there was a particular subject

50:16

that they wanted to know about, and they would go.

50:18

But once I left for college in 1960,

50:21

I don't know how many more they went to.

50:27

I would imagine they did 'cuz they just kept

50:30

wanting to do better what they were doing.

50:33

-

Well, they did conventions right in Lexington,

50:35

-

Oh did they?

50:37

(mumbling)

50:38

-

Okay,

50:39

-

And then teach them in, and it was lighting or posing

50:40

or whatever it was but they taught a course there.

50:43

-

They were always seeking to become better

50:49

at what they were doing.

50:51

-

Was there a point where they decided

50:54

to wind down the business?

50:56

-

I think it was, no. There was no point.

50:58

It was a gradual transition.

51:01

Now my mother died when she was 66.

51:03

Actually, she died in Pennsylvania.

51:07

She had a heart attack at my home,

51:10

right after our son, last son was born in '74.

51:13

And she was in that hospital for about a month

51:18

after the heart attack she had a stroke, 10 days after that.

51:22

And then from there they were gonna move her into our house

51:26

until she could be flown home.

51:29

And she didn't last that long.

51:32

She died less than a month,

51:36

after she had her heart attack, on Mother's Day,

51:38

in our house.

51:42

But she had semi-retired at the time,

51:44

-

She had.

51:46

-

Yeah she had, oh she loved gardening

51:47

and it was the first gardening, real garden she had,

51:49

was that summer in their home, right across the street

51:53

from their home and she was using a tiller

51:57

and probably was just too much for her

52:01

'cuz she wasn't real physical person, she wasn't like today

52:03

people go to the gym or they walk or run.

52:07

You know, she just, was healthy, seemed healthy,

52:10

but I think she must have had some heart problems

52:13

and they were possibly angina and they just

52:17

didn't treat them the same way they do now.

52:22

So if she were living in this decade,

52:25

she probably would have never died at that young age, but.

52:29

-

Her twin sister, Cindy, lived to 95, her twin sister.

52:33

-

She had a twin sister?

52:37

-

Oh yes, yes she did.

52:38

She lived to be 95.

52:40

-

Oh, I see.

52:43

And they were in the orphanage together?

52:44

-

Yes, they were.

52:46

-

There was a younger sister, Vivian.

52:48

-

Yeah, Vivian.

52:50

There were three of them.

52:51

The twins and one younger one

52:53

and they were three older siblings, that--

52:54

-

So, sorry.

52:59

-

Go ahead.

53:00

-

So after 1974 then, your father ran the studio on his own.

53:03

-

Yes but it wasn't...

53:08

even by that time he was winding down.

53:11

He would just go up when he felt like going up.

53:15

You know and he would just take appointments by phone

53:18

and he didn't do weddings anymore.

53:21

He gradually just wound down to accommodate his aging body.

53:23

-

Some dementia was setting in by then too, he'd get tired--

53:29

-

So it wasn't just one day he decided not to do it.

53:32

It was--

53:34

-

He pushed as long as he could,

53:35

and I advised him very strongly, 'You know dad,

53:37

you don't need to be doing this.'

53:39

He was getting his orders mixed up, one family,

53:41

he'd probably have the children over here

53:44

and half of them over here.

53:45

And, I remember the last part of an entire taking,

53:46

he had lopped off one end of it.

53:49

-

Yeah, it was you know, it was just time.

53:51

-

Was it at that point that he started looking back

53:57

at these older films and trying to get them back

53:59

to their own communities or was it before that?

54:02

-

It was before that.

54:03

-

Okay.

-

Yeah it was before that.

54:05

I don't think he did anymore of that

54:07

after she died, did she?

54:09

-

No, I don't think he did, either.

54:11

-

No 'cuz it was sad, because you know, they were,

54:13

they worked together, they lived together,

54:16

it was his best friend, his partner was gone.

54:18

And he was very lonely.

54:22

So it was, I'm sure it was heartbreaking

54:25

just to go to the studio without her.

54:28

So at that point I would say he was pretty much done.

54:33

-

He was.

54:36

-

You know, at that stage.

54:37

-

I think that,

54:45

that really covers many of the questions that we have.

54:47

You answered one of our questions earlier.

54:51

We wondered if your, if you thought your father

54:53

ever considered the movies he made would have

54:56

had the life beyond their immediate purpose at that time.

54:59

And do you think that he knew the documentary value

55:04

of what he was doing?

55:09

-

Well, foremost.

55:12

He was looking for a way to support the family.

55:14

Other than the studio because they were not getting

55:17

the people to come into the studio.

55:20

People did not have the finances to do that.

55:22

So he was looking for a creative way to support the family

55:26

and to make enough money to support us.

55:31

That was probably the initial reason.

55:33

But then, I think as he became involved in it,

55:35

he realized what he was doing.

55:39

I don't think he had any idea it would be

55:41

to the realm that it has become now.

55:44

I really don't think he knew the impact it was gonna make.

55:47

But because he liked being a part of history,

55:50

and a part of everything that was going on around him,

55:53

he wanted to document that.

55:57

And as a result, we're very fortunate because of that

55:59

that we have these films.

56:03

But,

56:05

I think he did realize somewhat what he was doing.

56:07

That these were something, and that's why

56:13

he went back to the communities.

56:14

To share them again to make sure

56:17

that those communities were able to enjoy these.

56:20

-

Right.

56:23

-

And like I said that's probably the first stage

56:23

of his sharing and passing this on to future generations,

56:27

but he's had fun too.

56:32

-

You can watch the progress or the development

56:36

of his techniques and his way of setting up scenes,

56:39

types of things that people responded to.

56:45

The audience tempted him to grow in his style

56:47

and his technique as much as anything.

56:49

In response to what they were seeing

56:50

and it developed into lines and more crowds

56:52

and more applause and more patrons as it were,

56:56

patron saints could put their dime or quarter in

57:03

and watch the movie.

57:06

He made some of the first commercials

57:08

this country's ever seen.

57:09

You may notice that in some of those films

57:11

you look through there, the mechanic would be working

57:13

on the cars, the grocery man would be sackin' up groceries,

57:16

beauty parlor would have their electric curlers

57:20

come down like this and curling their hair.

57:21

The milk man delivery or certain dairy.

57:26

The hardware store man would--

57:31

-

And didn't he sell those?

57:32

-

Yeah, he sold commercials.

57:34

-

Commercials, using those images to put on the screen.

57:35

-

And back in the 30s, that was unheard of.

57:41

-

That was a lot,

57:42

-

Yeah, that's a really good point.

57:45

-

Did he talk to you about

57:49

when he started getting attention,

57:51

Tom Whiteside made his film, and he was on the tv news,

57:53

did he talk to you about that much?

57:56

-

No, I wasn't around, I was in Pennsylvania.

58:01

-

We knew that it was gonna happen,

58:03

we knew that they were working on a story,

58:06

and we saw the movie, well, the end product.

58:09

But, he may have thought about it, he didn't mention it.

58:13

He didn't say it really wasn't a bragging point or whatever.

58:16

He was not that kind of person.

58:19

he didn't brag about it.

58:21

I think he just felt kind of good about it, though.

58:22

-

He did.

58:25

-

I think he felt honored,

58:26

but he didn't make a big deal of it.

58:29

I don't think he really knew

58:31

how much publicity he was getting.

58:34

But it was nice that that happened before he died.

58:38

That he saw that people really did appreciate his efforts

58:43

and his images and I think also at that point

58:47

he realized the impact that was coming.

58:51

That he was passing along a real heritage there.

58:53

To not just our family, but to many families.

58:57

-

He understood and appreciated Duke's initial thrust

59:01

into getting into collecting his movies and restoring them.

59:04

He understood that quite well and he was 100% behind it.

59:08

He thought it an honor that a large institution

59:12

like Duke would begin a work like this,

59:13

and he was all in favor of continuing.

59:17

-

But he didn't like being in the limelight,

59:22

he really didn't.

59:24

I think it's very obvious,

59:27

he was a humble person.

59:28

And this was just kind of fun to see this happening for him,

59:32

but he didn't feel any more special because of it.

59:34

(chuckles)

59:38

Even though he was and is.

59:41

-

That's true.

59:44

-

Have we failed to cover any ground here

59:45

that you can think of?

59:47

-

Well, let me see here.

59:50

Many of these questions you had asked my brother,

59:55

of course I wouldn't have had an answer to them

59:59

'cuz I wasn't around. Like how life was like before he--

1:00:00

-

Right.

1:00:05

-

When we were, when he was gone.

1:00:06

-

She was meticulously detailed and one of the things

1:00:09

that showed up was totally not related to the studio at all,

1:00:12

was making clothes for her new daughter.

1:00:16

She made many of the clothes that Mary wore.

1:00:18

Little fine embroidery work on 'em,

1:00:21

sewin' little buttons on 'em.

1:00:23

I don't see how she did it but that was her style.

1:00:25

Anything she attempted she made a profession out of it.

1:00:28

Raising flowers, pollinating the flowers, new breeds.

1:00:31

Fish, same way.

1:00:35

We use to talk about fish for years.

1:00:37

When it came to making crafts, like a pine straw basket?

1:00:41

Remember that?

1:00:46

-

I have that.

1:00:47

-

That was pine straws, ya'll wanna make sure you got that.

1:00:48

She made the most beautiful purse

1:00:51

and hand baskets here you've ever seen.

1:00:54

It was a, you could take it to a trade show

1:00:56

and it would bring quite a few dollars in

1:01:01

if somebody knew what they were getting.

1:01:02

But that kind of meticulous detail,

1:01:04

followed her in every phase of life

1:01:07

for every hobby she'd get into.

1:01:08

And Dad was meticulous in other ways, other avenues,

1:01:11

other activities.

1:01:16

But, she had her own unique creativity and it came out

1:01:17

in her work in the studio and his area of creativity

1:01:21

and it came out in movies.

1:01:25

In some ways, you'd call 'em a perfect match.

1:01:29

-

They were.

1:01:32

But she was just a very creative person.

1:01:33

I mean she was too, in different ways.

1:01:39

-

Right.

1:01:42

-

But it was a good marriage in more ways than one.

1:01:43

-

Yeah.

1:01:45

They set a good example for us.

1:01:46

(mumbles)

1:01:50

-

Well thank you, very much.

1:01:53

This has been a pleasure

1:01:55

and very interesting.

1:01:56

-

Well thank you, it's been fun to talk about our family,

1:01:57

it's always fun.

1:02:00

Like I said, it brings up memories

1:02:01

that you didn't realize were there.

1:02:03

-

As you go through these various pictures and movies,

1:02:08

they just, they bring back memories

1:02:10

you thought you forgot about.

1:02:13

-

Yep.

1:02:15

-

Yes.

-

They're like triggers, some of them.

1:02:15

Interview with Mary Waters Spalding, August 8, 2013

Transcript

Item Info

Archive of Documentary Arts

More Info & Options