THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409230189
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EDENTON LENGTH: Long : 208 lines
BEULAH WADSWORTH'S eyes sparkle as she talks about her life, 82 years long and growing richer every moment.
This small, strong, proud woman has picked cotton, plucked chickens, cleaned hogs and been tossed from wagons by bucking mules.
She's mothered two children and seen grandchildren and great-grandchildren flourish. She's the oldest living member of one of the nation's oldest black churches.
Now, in the old E.A. Swain school-turned-auditorium, these details from her past surround her, cajole her into telling story after story.
Wadsworth's history, and the history of all Chowan County residents great and small, is enshrined here in a permanent photo exhibit that touches every person and every aspect of the area.
Ten walls in the auditorium's foyer are home to some 250 photographs tracking a century of Chowan's churches, businesses and families as they have worshiped, worked, learned and served their country.
Few people, exhibit organizers say, can look at the pictures without seeing a part of themselves.
``It's personal, it's heartwarming,'' says Anne Perry, director of the Chowan Arts Council. ``What do you say? You just stand there and look at it.
``It's almost emotional, overcoming. . . . People come in, and they say, `That's my granddaddy. If my grandmother were living, she would cry.' ''
Conceived last November, a year on the heels of an immensely successful photo show at the arts council in the Swain building's basement, the $40,000 project opened to the public last week.
The high-quality photo reproductions were prepared by a company in Atlanta after Perry and project chairwoman Penny Powell Binns rooted through some 1,000 pictures submitted by Historic Edenton and 150 local families.
``The contributors are what made the show,'' Binns says. ``Getting people to part with their priceless, one-of-a-kind photographs . . . that was faith and a compliment.
``These photos are like our family now. We know so much about these photos. And we have learned so much history of Edenton.''
The walls are lined with black-and-white, color and old-style sepia pictures that detail the evolution of historic buildings and businesses that have been passed down through generations.
More important than the structures themselves, though, are the lives that have passed through them, Perry says.
``We tried to emphasize the people as well as the facilities,'' she says, ``because we know homes and churches are more about people than they are about buildings.''
A small black-and-white photo shows the congregation of Locust Grove American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which 64-year-old Hilton Earl Wadsworth says was founded in 1865.
``Stuff like this people should know about,'' says Wadsworth, Beulah's son and the church's trustee chairman since 1957. ``That's what I call keeping history.''
The building rose out of a ``bush shelter,'' where slaves from a farm called Haughton Point had held services under a grove of locust trees, Earl Wadsworth says.
``We got along and prayed the best we can,'' says Beulah Wadsworth, looking at the photo that holds four generations of her family. ``But we used to have a crowd. You couldn't get into it.''
Exhibit organizers wanted the photos of the Wadsworth family and others to reach out beyond Chowan County and tug heartstrings of people everywhere.
Perry says the enthusiasm of Jean deMajewski, a relative newcomer to the area, shows that they succeeded.
``It's shared history,'' says deMajewski, 58, who moved to Edenton from Connecticut in 1988. ``We all need to look at each other's, whether it's a New England mill village or a Spanish-speaking town near the Mexican border.''
Among the universally appealing items is a 1918 Western Union telegram from Richard Dixon, announcing to his family that he arrived safely overseas during World War I.
``Can you imagine what it felt like to the mother or the wife of the soldier?'' Perry asks.
A descendant of that soldier, 32-year-old lawyer Sam Dixon, is one of six generations who have lived in Beverly Hall, a well-known downtown home.
The house was built in 1810, coincidentally by ancestors of Dixon's wife, he says. His family acquired the house mid-century, and it was occupied by Union troops during the Civil War.
By the early 1900s Beverly Hall had one of the best-known gardens in the state.
Two prominent photos show a garden party at the home in 1910 and a modern party held this April.
``My grandmother used to always tell me that you don't ever really own these big old houses,'' Dixon says. ``You just pass through them.''
The exhibit ``shows that we all live in one community and we all get along,'' Dixon says. ``There's a great deal of respect, I think, for everybody.
``I walked in here and really got teary-eyed.''
A lot of people share Dixon's reaction when they come upon rare photos of a place or person they once knew.
One poignant photo shows Johnny Winborne, the first Chowan County resident to die in Vietnam, shaking hands with state Rep. B. Warner Evans in 1963 when he served as the legislator's page. Sandra Boyce, a friend of Binns', was among those who tearfully thanked the organizers for remembering him.
Other photos draw visitors' laughter.
A group of sporty young men is strewn across a 1905 photo labeled ``Edenton's first football team.'' A bloody-nosed boy proudly sits cross-legged in the front row with a football before him.
``That's just serious cool there,'' deMajewski says. ``Don't you think he made sure it was all in the right place for that picture, so we'd know they were a tough bunch?
``I like best the ones with people in them,'' she says. ``We look at them, but I always think that they're looking back at us and saying, `This is the way we were.' ''
Other items show the evolution of well-known structures as they change owners or change shape. Two Edenton Bay homes on East Water Street look completely different in 1890 and 1990 depictions.
Another picture shows Perry's father's old tractor shop in 1952. The building still looks ``exactly the same,'' Perry says, but now it houses the antique shop of Chowan Arts Council president Betsy Hunt.
A 1975 color photo depicts the Ferry Road Farm in Rocky Hock, where W.P. ``Spec'' Jones was born in 1909, one of six generations of his family to begin life there.
In the mid-1800s, Jones says, the home doubled as a post office. His grandmother would sort mail into two dozen pigeonholes in the home's front hall after it was brought to her by the mayor.
Jones, who just retired from NationsBank this year, is an expert on the exhibit's military wall, where he is shown in one picture as company commander of the 119th infantry regiment.
Some people who were stationed in Edenton during World War II still subscribe by mail to the Chowan Herald and sent photos for the exhibit, Perry says.
``I think it's wonderful to record all the happenings for the last 100 years,'' says Jones, who attended high school in the Swain building.
Exhibit visitors bounce from wall to wall, greeting pictures as they would old friends at a reunion.
Beulah Wadsworth, still spilling over with tales of older times, brags that she can name every man pulling in nets on a Greenfield Fisheries boat in a 1915 photo. And she does, pointing to each as she calls his name.
All the old-timers recognize Dr. Hines, who stands solemnly in a 1920 photo of Hines Drug Store. Hilton Wadsworth remembers how Hines fixed his leg, which he broke falling through the porch playing cowboy at age 5.
Organizers hope the photos are just the first phase of a more ambitious museum plan that would include showcases of artifacts from residents' attics, which Perry says are filled with ``treasures.''
The generosity with time and possessions of people who helped the project were the key to its success, Perry says. She pointed out volunteers like retired contractor Carl Harrell and electrician Leslie Kirby, who donated their handiwork to the exhibit.
``This is the kind of attitude of a community that wants to make something happen,'' Perry said. ``It takes more than money.
``It's not our project. It's the community's project.'' [The following appeared as a side bar to this story.]
SIXTY YEARS AGO, you could sit down in the classy King's Arms Tavern and enjoy a complete Sunday dinner - with shrimp cocktail and dessert - for 65 cents.
So boasts an ad from a 1934 edition of the Chowan Herald, now reproduced and mounted in the Chowan Arts Council gallery.
The full-page ad is one of 50 newspaper reproductions lining the walls in the council's facility beneath the E.A. Swain Auditorium. The exhibit will soon be moved upstairs to line an introductory corridor for the permanent ``Century of Chowan Through Photographs'' display.
The newspaper pages, which chronicle 100 years of the county's local journal, carry visitors through two world wars and the evolving lifestyles of Chowan. But organizers say the advertised prices of a sit-down dinner or a bedroom set or a dress are attracting the lion's share of attention.
``People have been most interested in what a dollar would buy in days gone by,'' said Ann Perry, the arts council's executive director.
To create the exhibit, Chowan native Corinne Thorud rooted through 60 years worth of Chowan Herald editions on microfilm.
Thorud, who said her great-grandfather was chosen by President U.S. Grant to write the history of Chowan County, said the family interest in local history ``was just passed along to me.''
The newspaper selections reflect the important issues of the times they cover. Even the publication's early name - it was called the Fisherman and Farmer in the late 1800s - helps describe the community it served.
In 1907, the Edenton Transcript lauded the passage of a local measure banning the sale of whiskey: ``Temperance Forces Win a Glorious Victory.''
Another popular page is a 1914 Carolina Motor Co. ad naming the high-powered people who had invested in brand new Studebakers.
``That was one of the most attracting things,'' Thorud said. ``Imagine putting in the paper who's worth $10,000 to $100,000.''
Personal items in the early news were also ``very personal,'' Thorud said. Columns and columns of ink were devoted to notices like ``Mrs. Marshall Hardison spent last week with her mother, Mrs. Ben Hassell.''
The detail makes the papers worth viewing more than once, Perry said.
``People have come back two times this weekend,'' she said. ``It's more than you can take in briefly.'' ILLUSTRATION: On the Cover
Color photo
Chronicling Chowan
Photos of the Chowan Arts Council exhibits by DREW C. WILSON
In the barn yard, circa 1920
Ladies from the turn of the century model a variety of hat styles.
Mule Sled, circa 1919
East Water Street
KEYWORDS: CHOWAN COUNTY HISTORY
by CNB