Sunday, December 13, 2015
Images
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Title and Ackowledgements
Like Water to a
Resurrection Fern
Unfolding the Life of Jack Adams
Rich Curtis
To the Reader
This book is the result of
a year filled with accidents and conversations. It began when my wife, Lori,
and I found a stack of drawings in an antique store. Her initial interest
became my prolonged obsession.
I wrote this book as a
pastiche of moments in the lives Jack and myself. The text is deliberately
segmented and non-linear. Two untraditional non-fiction books inspired the
structure of this text. The first is 39
Microlectures by Matthew Goulish. The second is The Accidental Masterpiece by Michael Kimmelman. Both are
exceptional in their capacity to weave personal narrative with historical
context and philosophical weight.
This project began as a
quest to find out the identity of an unknown artist. It evolved into an act of
reconciliation and redemption for a man I never met. Through the process of
searching for who Jack Adams was I mostly discovered pieces of myself.
Rich Curtis
Thomasville, Georgia
2012
For
Penelope, the one who kept his memory alive like an ember in her heart.
Very Special Thanks
This book would not have
been possible without the generous support from the following individuals and
institutions, listed here alphabetically:
Accidental Gallery (artists and friends of the
gallery)
Ann Bynum
Ann McCrickard
Athens Public Library
Carter and Marge Crittenden
Cuthbert Public Library
Deanna and Richard Ramsey
Gill Griggs
Haile McCullum
Jane Simpson and Earlene Hamilton (Georgia Military
Academy)
John Lawrence (Lamar Dodd Art Center)
LaGrange Public Library
Lori Curtis
Macon Public Library
Mary Ann and Jimmy Brown
Paul Manoguerra (Georgia Museum of Art)
Penelope Penland
Sandi Shaw
Sarah Curry
Richard Stewart
Sean Benjamin (Special Collections Library, Tulane
University)
Tom Hill and Ephraim Rotter (Thomas County Museum
of History)
Thomas County Courthouse
University of Georgia at Athens Special Collections
Library
“In our days we will say what our ghosts will
say.” – Sam Beam
The resurrection fern gets
its name from its ability to seemingly spring back to life after lying dormant
for a very long time. During periods of prolonged drought its foliage shrivels
up and the plant appears to die. It has been said the resurrection fern is
capable of surviving one hundred years of drought and still revive with a
single soaking of water.
Chapter One: Reflections
Main Street was a little
oasis of charm. I later called Boston, Georgia, “Mayberry with Spanish Moss.”
The downtown, such as it was, consisted of a two-block long strip of brick
storefronts. Several antique stores, the City Hall and two cafés were all lined
up together. The vacant train depot sat at one end of the street and the police
station guarded the other, like rusty bookends. A small park nestled in one
corner with a picnic table.
My wife, Lori and I had
moved to South Georgia only two months before. I was offered a position teaching
art at Thomas University in nearby Thomasville. After a whirlwind of packing
and unpacking and settling in to our new house, we started venturing out to the
surrounding communities to see what we could find. Several acquaintances had
recommended Boston for its personality and quaintness.
The first shop Lori and I
walked into was Reflections Antiques. It was housed inside the old post office
building. The original wooden counter and mail slots were still intact. Exposed
brick and cracked plaster walls surrounded glass cases and stained wooden
shelves. The musty aroma of old books filled the space. At the back there was a
staircase illuminated by a single light fixture leading to the second floor.
After browsing for several minutes we made our way across the large room and up
the stairs. On the second floor, boxes and shelves crammed with notebooks and
pillows were stacked around. A series of walking paths were carved through the
clutter. It felt more like a forgotten attic in an abandoned house than part of
the store. After a while of stumbling through the maze of dust and adjusting to
the dimly lit space, something caught Lori’s eye.
In the corner, resting on
top of a rugged wooden crate filled with ledgers and papers was a collection of
several loosely bound sketchbooks and a wide layout pad. Lori quickly realized
the pages were filled with original pencil sketches and studies. Underneath the
pads there was a seemingly endless mound of other tattered drawings and
watercolors. They obviously had some age to them. The style of the work had a distinctly
Regionalist flavor. Whoever drew them had been well trained. After a little
poking around, we found a couple of signatures of the artist, Jack Adams.
Without knowing the history of the building, the family, the town or anything,
we instantly fell in love with the artwork.
It was a tantalizing mystery. Who was this person? Why were these
drawings left behind? Did the artist who made these go on to be someone
significant in the art world? Was the artist still alive? For me, this initial
fascination slowly grew into an obsession.
Together, Lori and I
thumbed through all the artwork we could find. Mostly there were landscapes
drawn in various media from pencil to compressed charcoal to ink wash and
watercolor. Many of them were half-eaten by mold and mildew. Even the ones that
were intact had some degree of water damage. There were incomplete sketches and
fully rendered compositions. In addition to drawings there were a few pages of
color linoleum cut prints sandwiched in the back of one pad along with several copies
of one etching of a strip mine.
Musk
of time and forgotteness
A
taste of sweet death lingers on the floor
Seeping
into wood grain
Shadows
stain across these remnants
Calling
them back to primordial clay
Lori and I picked out a
small stack of our favorite pieces and carried them downstairs. We offered the
lady at the register $25 for the lot and she agreed. In passing, I asked her if
she knew anything about the artist. She said she didn’t know much, but that
someone at the library might be able to tell us more. She remembered that some
of the family had just been in town the week before for a funeral.
With our curiosities
piqued, Lori and I walked down the block to the Boston Carnegie Public Library.
The librarian on duty explained that one of the surviving members of the Adams
family happened to be a friend of hers. She told us she was glad to give us her
friend’s contact information, but she would need to make sure it was okay
before doing so. The librarian asked us to call or come back the next day.
As soon as the library
opened the following afternoon I called and spoke to the same woman. She was
able to give me the telephone number for her friend, Mary Ann Mayo Brown, a
second cousin to Jack who lived in Florida. The librarian also confirmed that
Mary Ann had been in town for a funeral just the week before.
The following weekend I
gave Mary Ann a call. A pleasant voice answered the phone. After some initial
cordiality I explained my reason for calling. I asked her to clarify who Jack
was. Mary Ann patiently walked me through a rough outline of the Adams family
tree. She explained that her great-grandparents, JC and “Big Mama” Adams, had
two sons, Redden and Roy. Redden was Mary Ann’s grandfather. Roy was the father
of Jack Adams, the artist that had created the artwork. Mary Ann seemed
favorable to my intentions of learning more about the artist, but I sensed
there was only so much she was willing to share about him. Before we ended our
conversation, Mary Ann gave me the names and phone numbers of Penelope Penland
and Deanna Ramsey, sisters that were Jack’s nieces related to his side of the Adams
family. She mentioned that Penelope was
the one who had been closest to Jack and was the better person to ask.
In spite of what Mary Ann
had said, I first tried to contact Deanna because she lived in Thomasville. I
thought she would be easier to reach. I called a few times over the course of
two weeks and left a couple of messages on her answering machine, to no avail.
I decided to quit trying before I was accused of harassment. Instead, I gave
Penelope a call. But, again, I had to leave a message and did not get a
response. At that point I thought the trail had run cold.
Silence is a way of denying the past
Ignoring present and stifling the
future
It is louder than words ever will be
Six months after finding
the artwork, I met a group of artists who were interested in starting a
cooperative art space in Boston. At our first official meeting, we decided to
call ourselves the Accidental Gallery. It was a perfect name for us as we were
a mixed bag of artists with vastly different interests and backgrounds. By
coincidence, we found out there was another Accidental Gallery. It happened to
be located in Boston, Massachusetts. Someone from our group contacted the other
gallery to ask if they thought it was a problem for us to share the name.
Needless to say, they had no issue with it.
At that time I was fixated
on the idea of exhibiting Jack’s artwork in public spaces around Boston. I
wanted to showcase the artwork that had been created by one of Boston’s
citizens who seemed to be forgotten. At that point I had not stopped to
consider why he might have been
forgotten. Soon after our Accidental Gallery opened, I shared with the other member-artists
my idea to have an exhibit of Jack’s work. They all seemed in favor of it.
Sandi Shaw, the organizer and defacto leader of our group marked it down on the
list of future events.
At one of the gallery’s first
organizational meetings a friend of Sandi’s, Ann McCrickard, was in attendance.
Ann was the owner of the old post office building and had originally opened
Reflections Antiques, the shop where Lori and I found Jack’s work. She later
had someone else take over the business. By the time the Accidental Gallery
formed, Reflections Antiques had closed. As a member of several community
organizations, Ann was still heavily invested in efforts to revitalize Boston’s
downtown area. She was interested in being involved and helping the gallery
succeed.
That night we spoke
briefly about Jack Adams and his artwork. Ann was curious how I had come to own
some of the drawings. She explained to me that she instructed the woman running
the antique store not to sell any of the drawings. When Ann and her late husband,
Michael, bought the building it was a disaster area. They had to launch into a
massive cleanup effort to make the space suitable for turning into a store. Their
long-term goal was to have a shop downstairs with a living space above. During
this process they found Jack’s sketchpads. Upon Michael’s insistence they took most
of them home with the intention of preserving the artwork.
Though she never said so,
I could tell Ann was hoping somehow to get the work back from us. She may have
hoped I would offer to return it. But, as I shared with her my desire to
preserve the work properly and exhibit it throughout Boston, Ann seemed to make
peace with the idea of us having part of it. Meanwhile, I was excited to learn
there was more of his work that survived.
Ann whole-heartedly
supported the exhibition. She agreed to lend what she had in her collection for
the show. At a later meeting Ann brought her stack of Jack’s sketchbooks for me
to look through. I took them home to examine them more closely. The images she
and Michael had saved consisted primarily of figure studies. Many seemed to be
classroom studies of live models. Others were candid poses of people working or
sitting in public spaces. They all demonstrated the same level of quality and
technical facility as the landscapes.
After studying all of the
drawings and watercolors together, Lori and I chose twenty pieces that best
represented Jack’s work. About half of them were from our collection, and the
other half was Ann’s. The work was mounted on white mat board to emphasize the
crude edges of the paper. Then, they were secured in black wooden frames.
The date for the opening
reception of the exhibition was set for February 17, 2012. The show was
entitled, Jack Adams: Boston’s Native Son.
It happened to be the first event scheduled in celebration of Boston’s 175th
Anniversary.
I wanted to write a short
biography of Jack Adams for the show based on what information I could find out
about him. In an effort to help me with this, Ann visited the Adams family gravesite
at the Boston Cemetery. She gave me the correct birth and death dates of all
the family members buried there. As the date for the exhibition drew nearer, I
still felt like I needed to have more information about the artist.
I had to try contacting
Penelope once more. This time, with a little searching around on the Internet,
I found an email address for her. I sent her a short message explaining who I
was and that I was contacting her to get information about Jack. Luckily,
within a day she responded enthusiastically to my message. We agreed on a time to have a conversation by
phone to discuss Jack and his artwork.
As it turns out, Penelope
was the missing piece to the puzzle. Penelope was very willing to share her
memories of Jack, whom she dearly loved. At first, she explained in general
terms that Jack had been a student at the University of Georgia and studied under
Lamar Dodd. He had been drafted into the Army and served during World War II.
Sometime after the war Jack moved to New York City. She hesitantly mentioned he
was gay and had been estranged from his family in the last years of his life.
In fact, Penelope acknowledged she was the only one in the family to maintain a
close relationship with him after he moved to New York.
After listening to
Penelope’s recollections of Jack, I realized the exhibit was not about
rediscovering one of Boston’s lost treasures. It took on a new significance.
The show was about redeeming the name of someone the town had tried to forget.
Jack Adams was not Boston’s native son. He was the black sheep of a family who
did not want to claim him anymore.
During our conversation I
told Penelope that I was curating an exhibition of Jack’s drawings. She
immediately grew very excited and offered to help in any way she could.
Penelope had been the executor of Jack’s will. She had saved many photographs,
papers, letters and small personal trinkets from his estate, but she never knew
about the existence of the sketchbooks.
About two weeks later I
received a package in the mail. On my request Penelope sent a CD of scanned
photographs of Jack at various points in his life. She also included copies of
letters from his mentor, Lamar Dodd. After reviewing all of the material I
picked out several photographs and had them printed and mounted on foam board
for display. I copied the Dodd letters and arranged them in a notebook. The
photographs and letters became part of the exhibit and served to contextualize
the artwork.
A few weeks before the
exhibition I mailed postcards announcing the exhibition. I made sure to include
Penelope, Mary Ann and Deanna. Sandi and Ann arranged an article in the local newspaper.
Flyers were also distributed to local businesses. The show was gathering steam
and creating quite a stir in the community.
Mary Ann confirmed she
would attend the exhibition and agreed to bring the few pieces of Jack’s
artwork that were in her possession. One of them was an oil painting on canvas
of her mother, Mary Adams. Mary Ann explained, “I believe the portrait Jack did
of my mother was done when she was around 21 years old. It may have even been a
wedding gift, but certainly it was done around 1936-38.” This was, of course,
during the years that Jack was in school at University of Georgia.
Haile McCullum, a
well-known designer and business owner in Thomasville, also received an
announcement about the exhibit. She contacted the gallery to ask if we were
interested in displaying a drawing of Jack’s that she owned. Interestingly,
Haile had come upon Jack’s work in much the same way Lori and I had. She
happened to be visiting Boston one day and stopped in Reflections Antiques to
shop around. She described making her way up to the second floor and walking
gingerly around the boxes and shelves. She found the same stack of sketchbooks
piled on top of the wooden box hiding in the corner. She picked through all the
notebooks and remnants just as Lori and I had. The piece that caught her eye
was a matted and framed drawing of the New York skyline, titled Manhattan Morning and dated 1936.
Sandi convinced the
gallery’s landlord to let us use the vacant retail space next door for the
exhibition. This meant we were able to hang the Adams work in one room and have
the gallery member’s work on display right next to it. Logistically, this
proved to be a great decision.
On the day of the opening,
I arrived several hours before the reception. In the room with Jack’s work, I
unfolded a table to display the letters and a guest book. I propped the
photographs of Jack on tabletop easels. I also brought in several large
painting easels to present the artwork lent by Mary Ann and Haile. I spaced the
easels around the gallery among the framed pieces that hung on the wall.
A respectable crowd of
people from the community attended the reception. The mayor of Boston made an appearance, as
did several of my colleagues, including Dr. Gary Bonvillian, President of Thomas
University. Some of my students also came, lured by the promise of extra
credit. Mary Ann and her husband, Jimmy, drove several hours to deliver their
paintings and see the show. Deanna and her husband, Richard, arrived later in
the evening. All the member-artists pitched in to make it a flawless evening.
After the gallery exhibit
was over, Ann and I talked about hanging the work in locations around town so
others in the community could experience it. We chose locations with the
highest traffic. Ann secured a place in the lobby of City Hall to show three of
the watercolors. The owners of the Main Street Café, a popular local restaurant,
agreed to hang six drawings in their dining room. A week after the reception
Ann and I delivered the chosen pieces to their respective venues. The remaining
work stayed on the wall next door to the gallery.
The success of the event
only fueled my desire to uncover more about Jack Adams. I was interested in
digging further into what had happened to strain the relationship between Jack
and his family. I also had to find out if there was more of his artwork out in
the world. It seemed hard to believe that Jack would have just quit painting
all together.
Chapter Two: Blood Life
To begin the next phase of
my research, I visited the Boston Cemetery myself. As Ann had mentioned, at the
foot of Jack’s grave stone was written, “Captain US Army WWII 1941-46.” He was
laid to rest next to his grandfather, JC Adams.
The following month I
visited the Thomas County Museum of History to see if I could find out any more
about the town of Boston or the Adams family. I set up an appointment with the
Curator of Collections, Mr. Ephraim Rotter. Before I arrived he had gathered
several gray, acid-free paper boxes that held birth, death and marriage
records, photographs of several family businesses and newspaper clippings that
detailed some of the odd facts about the town— and the Adams family. I spread
out all the documents on a large oak conference table and scanned through every
artifact. Tom Hill, the former curator, happened to be volunteering at the
museum that day. He shared several compelling anecdotes about the town of
Boston.
Tom explained that when
the railroad was built through Thomas County, the people of Boston, Georgia,
decided to relocate the whole town closer to the tracks. This proved to be a
wise choice. For the better part of the 20th Century, Boston was a
thriving community with a bank, pharmacy, hardware store and other businesses
lining Main Street.
As a child
I used to walk to the railroad tracks
Not far
from my house
And watch
the trains passing through town
Sometimes
I would find bits of old sheet metal
And a
couple of rusting spikes
I would
set the strips of metal on a battered tie
And drum
away on my homemade trap set
To the
rhythm and hiss of the passing rail cars
One of the prominent
families to emerge at the turn of the century was the Adams. The name is of
English origin, derived from the Latin adamus,
which means, “earth.” James Caswell Adams, nicknamed JC, was a prominent
businessman who owned much of the land and buildings around Boston. He seemed
to have his hands in almost every business and real estate deal in town.
Records show that many people in Thomas County and the surrounding area borrowed
money and rented houses from him.
Around 1875, JC married
Mary Ann “Big Mama” Hallman. She got the nickname from her children in part
because she was the reining matriarch of the family, a formidable presence who
always got her way. Big Mama was also a rather large woman. She bore five
children, of which only Redden Whittaker and Denzil Roy survived.
Records showed the City
Drug Store of Boston was in operation from 1882 until 1905 when JC and his sons
purchased the business. The name of the store changed to JC Adams and Sons
Drugstore and so remained until the mid-1950s. The first few years of owning
the business were comparatively lean times for JC and his sons. Records from
this time reveal overdue bills and letters from creditors that indicate large
sums of outstanding debt.
Meanwhile, Redden became
one of the youngest pharmacists in the state. At the age of 20 he was licensed
and working as the primary druggist. He is credited with developing, and
patenting in 1906, a cure-all “blood purifier” called Blood Life. This eventually
became an incredibly popular product and they shipped it all over the
southeastern United States.
There is a long tradition of
Snake Oil salesmen and
Peddlers of liniments and cure-alls
Rolling through town after town
Receipts found in the
store’s ledgers, along with other artifacts, show a wide array of product sold
at the drugstore, such as Quinine and Calomel in small cardboard pill boxes,
salt, Camphor, teething powder, eye water, toothache drops, Aida Pomade, talc,
Atwood Bitters, sexual pills, roach powder, flavored oils, matches, cigars,
candy, postage stamps and eye glasses. Crates of glass bottles that would have
contained Blood Life were also left behind on the second floor.
In the files at the Museum
of History, I found handwritten pages stating JC and Mary were among the
fourteen original signers of the covenant for the Boston Primitive Baptist
Church on November 15, 1907. JC Adams was listed as treasurer from 1907 until
his death in 1937. Redden, at 21 years of age, was listed as a junior member.
The church held its first service on November 17, 1907. Elder Simms was the
minister for that first service.
During
the early years of the church, there was a large congregation. After the
morning services, around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the families spread out a
potluck Sunday dinner on a fence wire table under live oaks in the church yard.
White
linen bonnets and whale bone fans
Pushing
thick air around in summer shade
Mosquitoes
lunch on pulsing jugulars beneath parasols
Fire
ants sneaking over stockings and trousers
A
symphony of casseroles spread out
Like the
bounty of loaves and fishes
In 1910, the Adams’ eldest
son, Redden, married Lily Livingston. She was from a well respected family in
town. Lily proved to be a strong
community leader, joining several civic organizations and asserting her
leadership to improve the community.
Lily was a member of the
20th Century Club. In 1913 this organization secured and oversaw a $6,000
grant by Andrew Carnegie toward the construction of a new library in Boston.
The Carnegie Library was completed and opened in 1914. JC, Redden and Roy were
all Honorary Gentlemen Members of this organization.
In 1913, Roy married
Blanchard Forster, who was the daughter of Ida and Willie Baily Forster. Mr.
Forster owned a construction company and was well respected in the community.
His lineage was traced back to William Shurtleff, who journeyed from England to
settle in Plymouth in the 1650s.
In 1916, JC and Mary twice
became grandparents. Redden and Lily had
a daughter whom they named Mary, after her grandmother. Roy and Blanchard had a
son together, Denzil Roy Adams, Jr. whom they nicknamed Jack.
JC and Big Mama must have
been thrilled to be grandparents. After the deaths of three of their children,
what joy the new babies must have brought them. Both Mary and Jack were born
healthy and bright.
Sadly though, that joy was
quickly replace by yet another tragedy. Blanchard suffered from complications
during her pregnancy. There is no record of what exactly happened. But, less
than six weeks after Jack was born, his mother passed away. This was the first
of many emotional burdens Jack would later bear in his life.
One breath is given at the expense of
another
All the clichés of cycles and balance
Cannot soothe the ache
Itself the cruelest cliché of them
all
When Blanchard died it was
obviously devastating to Roy in a very conscious way. Later, of course, it was
hard on Jack as he grew up and was able to comprehend what had happened. The
family did what they could to provide a mother to Jack at the family house
where all the Adamses were living. Three generations: JC and Big Mama, Redden
and Lily, Roy, Mary and Jack all lived under the same roof.
We crossed the ocean together
I have been thirsty for your voice
Wanting a whisper of promises
The same year Jack and
Mary were born, President Woodrow Wilson declared United States involvement in
World War I. Many of those who did not fight overseas joined the war effort in
other ways.
In another file of the
museum’s archives, Redden was listed as the Chair of the Membership Committee
for the Ozell Auxiliary of the Red Cross. Lily was a member of the Executive
Board. This was an organization that raised money and sent supplies to areas of
need during the war. In 1918, Redden Adams traveled to Greece as part of a
special envoy of the Red Cross. For his service he was awarded the Silver
Cross. In 1919, the Ozell Auxiliary raised $2,300 and sent boxes of clothes and
supplies overseas.
The Treaty of Versailles
was signed on June 28, 1919, ending World War I and dissolving the Ottoman and
German Empires. The formation of new countries throughout Europe and Middle
East followed.
During the years of the
war, Roy courted a local socialite, Dean Rountree. She came from a very wealthy
family in the area. It took considerable effort on the part of Roy to woo Dean
to his side. However, in 1919, Roy and Dean were married.
What is it like to witness your
father
Attempting this gesture of
replacement
Four years later Dean gave
birth to Evelyn Adams, Jack’s half-sister. By then, Jack and Mary were seven
years old. Around the time Evelyn was born, Roy and Dean decided they needed to
move out of the family home. In the process, the decision was made to leave
Jack in the care of his grandmother. Big
Mama had looked after Jack from the moment he was born and was very attached to
him. She had already endured the loss of three children. As the story goes, Big
Mama said, “I’ve lost too many children. You can’t expect me to take this one
and raise him and then take him away from me.” Jack’s father, stepmother and
half-sister moved out, leaving Jack in the family home. Redden, Lily and Mary
remained in the house with JC and Big Mama. Since Jack and Mary were the same
age, they were raised as brother and sister.
Photographs from this time
show Mary and Jack wearing similar dresses and having the same style haircut.
The convention of dressing toddler boys in dresses was fashionable during the
Victorian era. By around 1905 this practice was no longer in favor. However,
Big Mama raised her two sons during the last years of the 19th
century. She was likely the primary caregiver of Jack and Mary since Redden was
running the business and Roy was trying to start over his life. Therefore, it
makes sense that the two kids were dressed alike.
“I think Dean may have
been a tough person to know, not very likable.”
–Mary Ann
Mayo Brown
“Maybe it felt fine to
[Jack] to stay with his grandmother, but I’m sure it didn’t feel fine that he wasn’t
going with his father. I do think he felt much closer to Mary. It was kind of
like they were twins because they were the same age.”
–
Penelope Penland
This push-pull
This timid rage
This love-grief
This sagging sunlight
Blanchard’s father, Willie
Forster, built the house that Roy and Dean moved into. It was on the corner of
Stephens and Jefferson streets. The house had an interesting architectural feature.
There was a peddler’s cove on the right-front side. If a door-to-door salesman
was passing through town, he was told to go by the house. If a light was
burning in the window of the peddler’s cove, he was welcome to stop and stay
the night.
Jill and Rankin Smith,
former owners of the Atlanta Falcons, now own the house that once belonged to
Roy and Dean. After purchasing the house, the Smiths moved it from Boston to
their property, Seminole Plantation, located south of Thomasville.
I was able to arrange a
visit with the Smiths and see the house for myself. It was immaculately
restored with additions of trim and gingerbread along the sweeping front porch.
Inside, the fireplaces were tiled with Majolica. A grand staircase led to the second
floor. The original hardwood floors led from room to room, and the plaster
walls were filled with hunting trophies and artifacts.
Ashes twist out of the chimney
Soaked in Brandy wine
While Redden was the chief
pharmacist at the family drugstore, Roy was a prosperous farmer. A list of
properties revealed the Adams family owned at least 1,400 acres of land, cane
and turpentine mills, the local John Deere franchise, and Adams, Rountree and
Co., the dry goods and hardware store in Boston, located across the street from
the drug store.
According to the Thomas
County Record of Deeds, in 1930 Standard Oil signed a two-year lease for
property located on the corner of Jefferson and Stephens Streets from the Adams
family for the sum of two cents for every gallon of gasoline sold.
The children of Redden and
Roy grew up in Boston. They attended the local public school during the year
and probably spent summers working for their parents and learning the family
businesses. Photographs of Jack, Mary and Evelyn from this time show them
playing together and dressing up in costumes. All evidence suggests the
children’s formative years were relatively normal, living in the security of
moderate wealth and privilege. The whole family was very close, residing across
the street or in the same neighborhood for a number of years. There is no
indication that the Adamses were significantly affected by the Great Depression
that swept across the country during the 1930s. For Evelyn and Mary, life was probably
focused on education and preparing for a domestic life. For Jack, life would be
taking a dramatically different course.
Will you sip my life from this Mason
jar?
Can you unravel the flesh from my
face?
Do you resent me in some secret place
in your heart?
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