“IT’S LIKE PAINTING A PICASSO’

There’s something reassuring in watching Roscoe Ross work.

The knowing eye. The strong, steady hands. The rhythm of his movement.

His way is an old way. It pays no mind to the TikTok world we live in, with its five-second attention span and fixation on fame.

You could say his trade — laying bricks — is biblical: “And you, oh son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it a city,” the Good Book says. 

At sunrise one recent morning at Rose Hill Cemetery, Ross was getting the texture of concrete just right before he began troweling. He was adding a second thin layer to protect a row of old, decaying bricks at a private burial plot. 

You’ll find him at Rose Hill on many days, even on weekends. (“You have to take advantage of your sunny days. I’d prefer to be somewhere catching fish.”)

Last summer, after someone’s car or truck battered the arch at the cemetery’s College Street entrance, it was Ross who took on the restoration. He cleared away the damage, then set about to repair the arch, brick by brick, layer by layer.

If you’ve ever visited the burial site of Allman Brothers Band members near the main entrance to Rose Hill, you’ve seen more of his work. He laid all the bricks there, bringing the shrine to life.

The 68-year-old learned from the best. His dad, Oscar Ross Sr., was a master brick mason for more than 65 years. (So was one of his uncles.) Between the elder Ross and his son, they have 138 years of “union work” between them.

It’s a tie that binds. Sometimes on a job he pulls out one of his daddy’s tools, maybe his trowel. It keeps him connected.

Roscoe Ross was recently honored as one of Historic Macon’s 2024 Preservation Award winners. He won the Jenny Thurston Award, which salutes a lifetime of historic preservation work.

His father saw to it that young Roscoe got a head start on learning the trade. Many a day when the younger Ross got home from the old Duresville Elementary School on Millerfield Road, he would start stacking bricks in the barn, learning different patterns — running bond, jack-on-jack, herringbone — that he’d use on the job one day.

His father would come home from a long day of work, greet his wife, Amanda, then inspect what he had assigned his son to do, correcting him where he needed to.

“When other kids were playing with Play-Doh, I was playing with bricks,” he said with a laugh.

During the summer, he also helped his grandfather, Benjamin Collins, on his Donnan Road farm. Much of Collins’ 145 acres was devoted to fruit orchards — peaches, apples, grapes — but there were peas, beans, corn and plenty more in the garden to harvest in the summer heat.

“I was his right-hand man till I was 10,” Ross said. “Once I got to 10, they put a trowel in my hand.” 

During his days at Northeast High School, he got a part-time job at a Piggly-Wiggly store, stocking shelves and carrying out customers’ groceries. Working at the store also meant he got a Social Security card, which he needed to get into the union.

There were two brick-mason unions back in those days: the Local No. 4, for Black masons, located above the H&H restaurant, and the Local No. 17, for white brick masons. Once you were accepted into a union, you had five years to get certified as a journeyman brick mason.

In 1973, the year he graduated from Northeast, he began twice-a-week classes in the evening, learning everything the program offered, including how to read blueprints.

“You set your own pace,” Ross said. He was able to finish that training in three years because of all that practice in his youth. (He’ll get his 50-year union card soon.)

 “All of that training I did back then for my dad put me years ahead of everybody else,” he said. “Dad was getting me ready for an apprenticeship.” 

In short order,  “I was a full-fledged bricklayer,” he said. Others would have to get on-the-job training.

‘YOU ONLY GET ONE SHOT’

Bartholomew Duhart

He worked for his father about 25 years, but he also worked for other contractors in town, including Bartholomew Duhart, whose creations across the Unionville neighborhood in particular are legendary.

Ross would travel out of town on occasion — even to work on the Buckhead home of Capricorn Records co-founder Phil Walden — but he preferred being home with his wife, Debra, and seeing his son, Jonathan, who now lives near Atlanta. (Ask him about the two-year British Petroleum project east of Chicago, where more than 200 brick masons lined the inside of 8-foot-tall pipes with fire bricks for more than a quarter mile.)

Ross quickly made a name for himself. People would call his father and ask if Ross could help with their brick or stone projects. 

He’s worked on four different homes for Macon attorney Frank Horne, everything from walkways to fireplaces. (Horne also knew Ross’ father.)

The walkway in front of Frank Horne’s home.

“When people are out walking the dog or pushing a baby stroller, they stop in front of my house (on Albermarle Place) all the time and ask, “Who did this brickwork,” Horne said. “It is absolutely amazing.

“Everybody knows he’s the best. There’s nobody at his level.”

Maryel Battin, left.

In time Ross met Maryel Battin, who led the Historic Macon Foundation for 17 years. After he did some work for her, she saw his talent and asked him to help with restoration and historic preservation projects whenever he could.

Now, decades later, you’ll find that work all over town. A walkway (and reset stone) at Washington Park. Brick walls outside Mercer Law School. At the Robert E. Lee Building, formerly the Professional Building and home to WIBB studio. Inside and outside Mount de Sales High School. The Cannonball House. The old warehouse where 41 NBC is located.

And soon at the Hay House, where it looks like a delivery vehicle hit one of the stately columns near the driveway.

Ross’ work on the Rose Hill arch.

On a job, he knows the most important thing he can do. It’s pretty simple. “As you go, just stand back and look at your work,” he said. “Pick out your flaws and straighten ’em out while you can.”

In his line of work, mistakes are easy to spot.

“Brick work has always been under everybody’s eye to where it has to be perfect — straight joints, straight head joints, the whole nine yards,” he said. “You may not know anything about brick work, but you can look to see if it’s straight or if it’s pure ugly. You know what I mean?”

In its own way, it is a work of art. And you don’t get second chances. 

“It’s like painting a Picasso,” he said. “You only get one shot to do this. You can’t come back tomorrow.” 

When the Rose Hill archway was damaged last summer, there were sentiments to just tear it down and rebuild. But Ross knew he could save it, and the results have drawn praise far and wide. He used 8-inch bricks — almost 90 years old — for the project that had been set aside for such restorations. (Using incompatible materials can cause damage to historic masonry.)

He credits the foresight of consultant Bill Causey in collecting — and saving — old bricks, cobblestone, marble and more that are invaluable in such preservation projects. It was crucial in saving the old archway. Ross used hundreds of them.

Rose Hill, which opened in 1840, holds a special place for Ross. He has a real sense of history — and pride — about Macon too, even talking at one point about how important it was to Macon’s growth that the city had two big brick companies: Cherokee Brick, founded in 1877, and Burns Brick, founded in 1936.

“Here, Rose Hill, you can’t find a better place to do masonry surgery,” he said. “It’s needed in here. You can see where the families preserved nice, beautiful plots, but over the years of neglect the walls are collapsing. You can go in and surgically restore them. … Whatever the material is, though, we have to match it. That’s what makes it so exciting.”

Historic preservation, he says, “is the heart of the city, … but it takes a lot of effort.”

Causey, who worked for decades with Macon’s Engineering and Public Works departments, now oversees work at Rose Hill. He has turned to Ross time and time again for repairs that require an expert’s touch.

Simply put, Ross’ restoration work on walls, steps and more “is a beauty to behold,” he said.

“He is truly a master craftsman, and upon his departure from this honorable trade, there will be a huge void, unlikely to be filled in today’s construction industry,” Causey said.

“There will always be bricklayers,” he said, “but there will never be another master craftsman like Roscoe Ross.”

DISCOVERY PUTS PAINFUL PAST ON THE RECORD

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

But the words were right there in front of her, even if they were hard to read. There was no mistaking it.

“In consideration of the sum of eleven hundred and sixty dollars, … do grant, … sell and convey … five Negroes (:) Sarah, … twenty years of age; Robert her child, six months old; Simon, a boy seventeen years of age; Alfred, twelve years of age; and Wiley, a Blacksmith twenty seven years old.” 

“It blew my mind,” said Erica L. Woodford, the clerk of Bibb County Superior Court. “All of the air escaped me. I got goosebumps.”

She ran downstairs to tell Stephanie Woods Miller, her chief deputy, what she had found. “Come here! You’ve got to see this!”

Erica L. Woodford; Stephanie Woods Miller.

They climbed the steps to an old mezzanine floor inside the office where ancient record books are stored. There, they looked at the deed books in astonishment. In page after page — 17 different volumes, it turned out — were entries of slave transactions in Bibb County from 1823 (the year Macon was incorporated) to 1865.

The names of enslaved people — reduced to chattel in more than 1,000 transaction records — were right there alongside entries for plats of land, houses or a horse and buggy.

The records showed that slaves were used as collateral for loans. The railroad leased them for work it needed. The city of Macon used them in its development — from road building and Ocmulgee River dredging to plantation life near the Ocmulgee Indian mounds.

And in 1835, Macon City Council members (known then as the Board of Aldermen) approved the purchase of eight slaves for the city’s first elected mayor, Robert Augustus Beall, for $10,000.

“Doesn’t that blow your mind? asked Dr. Chester Fontenot Jr., the director of Africana studies at Mercer University. “You have the city government saying: ‘Go buy you a slave.’ This is tax dollars, paid for with city funds.”

Now, research of the records — more than five years in the making, in part because of the pandemic — has coalesced into the Enslaved People Project, which just won a 2023 Preservation Award from Historic Macon. The slave records are being digitized, and in time they will be searchable by name, transaction amount, characteristics and more. It’s been a painstaking process, requiring at least three sets of eyes on each document to ensure accuracy, then cataloging details in a spreadsheet.

“It’s important to shed light on their stories individually and collectively to humanize these people who were forced to work under certain conditions so that we can have a thriving city,” Woodford said. “Those Black people built the wealth of the landowners. They built the roads that we drive on, the buildings that we inhabit. They built this city.”

Macon residents with prominent names — names you see on streets and buildings around town — owned slaves too.

Finding the deed books was just blind luck. They’d been sitting at the courthouse for 190 years. After Woodford was elected in 2012, she took time when she could to familiarize herself with all the records in the office. One day she just happened to find old cabinets, pull-out file drawers — and the deed books.

“It was amazing — and astonishing,” she said. “(I thought) Here is actual proof of a taboo topic that we rarely speak on, the subject that now is a no-no to talk about in schools and educational settings.”

Some of the slave records list names. Many do not. The transactions range from young children to people in their 70s. Some of the entries list family relationships. Most do not. And sometimes dozens of men and women were sold at one time. (One deed record noted 220 people sold in one sale.)

Woodford talks often about one of the first entries she ever saw, in deed book 3, page 6. It listed the sale of  “a certain Negro girl by name of Harriett, aged eleven years, very light complexion, … straight hair, warranted to be sound and well,” for $225 to Alexander Bryan of Bibb County on Aug. 8, 1828. Bryan, the next entry indicates, then sold Harriett — “together with the future issue and increase of said female slave” (i.e., her children) — to James Taylor, a Savannah merchant, for $275 on June 17, 1829.

“What’s interesting,” Woodford said, “is that none of the other transactions selling humans described them in such detail. “Maybe she was beautiful. Maybe she was lovely to look at.”

Often, Miller said, when they have those descriptions, they’re selling them for their physical attributes,” sometimes for sexual purposes.

Dr. Chester Fontenot Jr. (Photo by Bekah Howard, Mercer University)

“We have human beings who were bought and sold like chickens and cows for the purpose of profit — money — without any regard for their humanity,” said Fontenot, who coordinated research of the records. “Because those who were doing it just believed that Black people weren’t human. Or if they were, they were on a lower level of humanity.” 

What’s clear from the records is that the families of enslaved people were often ripped apart. In one record, a mother and her children were used as collateral on loans to different creditors, and in time there was a default when someone failed to make the required payments.

“I realized that this mother and her children were likely to be separated because there were three creditors and three enslaved people,” Woodford said.  “(I thought) I bet this story ends with her being separated from her children — and that they were young and would never know her” — because somebody defaulted on a loan.

And the sad truth is that the deed books don’t capture the full picture of slavery in Bibb County during those years. “If you come from somewhere else or you’re gifted certain property, it’s not necessarily recorded,” Woodford said. “You already own the property.”

(Macon, as history shows, was a major slave auction site in the 19th century, as noted in a 2020 New York Times article. Among the prime locations: Cotton Avenue, near the former site of the Confederate monument before it was moved,  Pine at Fifth streets, and near what is now the Macon-Bibb County Government Center.)

“It takes the theoretical and makes it very real,” Miller said of the deed records. “It’s one thing to read about it in a history book where it’s a five-second moment of Black history, and it’s another thing to be looking at something that someone transcribed by hand.”

The records are written in a script font — similar to cursive — that “is like learning another language” when you’re trying to decipher it, Miller said. It’s hard on the eyes.

Volunteers and Mercer University students and employees, under Fontenot’s watchful eye, went through the documents page by page, making sure they didn’t miss an entry. Others checked their findings to ensure the accuracy, as did Julie Grimm, the office’s historical preservation clerk.

About 300 records are viewable now, but after they’re scanned, all of the records will be searchable from a link on the clerk’s office website (https://bit.ly/3P9scAA). The goal? By the end of 2023, you’ll be able to enter a search term and go directly to the corresponding page. 

“We want this to be as user friendly as possible while maintaining the integrity of scholarly work,” said Fontenot, who’s also working on a narrative component for the project to add context.

Uses of the records are unlimited, Miller said. “We could offer sessions for genealogists on how to search, to students, writers, podcasts, TV shows (such as) ‘Who Do You Think You Are.’ ”

For those who have worked on the records for years, Woodford acknowledged the toll it has taken.  

“There is definite psychological trauma,” she said. “You look at the trauma of what happened during slavery, and then you’re reliving that every single day (during the research.) And then you’re watching the news. And then you’re trying to figure out if there is a nexus between the dehumanization of Black people in 1823 versus current trends, current happenings in society. … It’s taxing.”

The work brought tears to Grimm’s eyes at times. “You can’t believe how people treated each other,” she said.

“There were times I got overwhelmed,” said Fontenot, who went through two of the deed books himself. “I had to take a break, … go outside, walk around. We were all like that. It was intense.”

The work, he added, “has meant to me something almost sacred. Unlike any other group of people here in this country, we are the ones whose history and culture and ties to the past were intentionally severed — an attempt made to try to remake us in the image of those who bought us and owned us.”  

As word has spread about the project and as it winds toward conclusion, the women say they’ve gotten requests for more information from across the country. They say they’ve gotten no pushback about the project.

“At least not to my face,” Woodford said.

Elsewhere in Georgia, such records have been lost to courthouse fires or floods. And some have been discarded or destroyed.

“In one county in the metro area, some of the historic books were found in a trash bin — and in south Georgia as well,” Woodford said. “The genealogical society saved the records because they had been thrown away. So we’re lucky. We’re blessed.”

Fontenot likens the records — what they mean and the context surrounding them — to debates about “blood diamonds,” or diamonds sold to fund violent insurrection in the regions where they are mined. His chief aim has been to strip away the “false narrative” about slavery: that things weren’t so bad, that everyone worked together, got along and cooperated.

“If you could take out the pain, if you could take out the injustice, if you could take out the horror, … the separation of families, the rape of the women, if you could just strip out all of this and just look at these documents in terms of historical material, you would get excited,” he said. “But you can’t do that.

“I can’t talk about this project without getting all riled up,” said Fontenot, who’ll retire next spring after 49 years of teaching. “But I’m pleased to be able to get riled up with this project and all that it implies and encompasses for people. This is my way of leaving something for the community, especially people of African descent.”

Woodford and Miller see the records as a “catalyst for conversation,” not as a source of guilt or to cast blame. 

“I’ve been (in settings) where people say, ‘Why do we have to talk about that? Well, in some corner, somebody’s already talking about it. Some of these stories are passed down at Thanksgiving on both sides of the fence. Some of this is not quite as hidden as people would like to think.”

She added, “I think it’s not about pointing fingers to make anyone feel bad about the history. We are only responsible for our own actions. We can’t be responsible for our parents or grandparents or our great-great-grandparents’ actions. We are just shedding light on the truth of what happened so we can learn about history —  we can learn about our shared history — and hopefully we can grow from it and be better humans.”

It all comes down to one thing for Fontenot: “Let’s tell the truth about what happened.

“Once we do that and get a fuller understanding of what happened, that gives us a baseline to start figuring out why we’re in the state we’re in now. Only by recognizing that there’s a wound can we cure it and heal it.”

In the coming weeks, the Tubman Museum plans an exhibit on the Enslaved People Project. Inside the museum will be an original deed book, as well as 25 or so duplicate pages so that visitors can see for themselves what the records said — and looked like. 

For Macon, the records can be another step in community understanding and reconciliation. At least that’s Woodford and Miller’s hope. 

“When you start talking, you never know what blooms from beginning the conversation,” Miller said.

“Sometimes you need some ripening, a little distance from that history, to be able to say this is important and this is how you can talk about it in a way that doesn’t set the world on fire,” Woodford said. “Because truth has a way of rising anyway. You can only suppress it so long. It’s better to get ahead of it and be part of what’s next. We don’t want to be stuck in 1860.

“We want to look forward to a different kind of future, and I think we want to do that future together,” she said. “That’s the only way Macon survives.”

‘THAT’S HOW WE SURVIVED’

For Wini McQueen, it’s all about the story.

And she’s got plenty of them to tell.

Forging a working life as a fabric artist — “I really call myself a fine artist” — seems meant to be. But she does far, far more than just sew fabric squares together. In all her work, she’s stitching together stories on African-American history and culture, exploring issues of class, gender and society through her own seasoned views of life.

“I consider Wini McQueen to be Macon's greatest living visual artist,” said Carey Pickard, who has known and worked with McQueen for decades. “She is a genius who communicates important and often forgotten stories through her art.

“Wini's work encourages us to look at the world in new and different ways, and for that I am very grateful.”

When McQueen was a child growing up in Durham, N.C., in the 1940s, her grandfather would bring home scraps of cloth from the cotton mill where he worked. In time the 6-year-old took the swatches and fashioned her own quilt, her first fabric project. (She still has fragments of it.)

She started painting too — on paper, cloth, rocks, “whatever I could without getting into trouble.” She used a Paint-by-Number kit to create a colorful scene of dancers on a tablecloth.

“That’s how I know work and how I know life,” she says in a 2020 Museum of Arts and Sciences video chronicling her retrospective exhibit there. “I piece it together.”

When Historic Macon sought to honor the history of its new office at the old Fire Station No. 4, we turned to McQueen to find a proper way — and she did. “The Recommission,” three strands of brightly painted old fire hoses, now hangs from the station’s former hose room.

“I’m always telling a story,” the 79-year-old said. “When I made ‘The Recommission,’ I’m telling a story about where this foundation came from and encouraging people to renew their thinking and their actions and look at the past and be considerate of what is right there at hand.”

Her exhibits — and teaching — have taken her around the world, from the Museum of Folk Art in New York and a quilt festival in Tokyo to the dusty roads of African villages.

But it nearly didn’t happen.

As she grew up, “Like many children, I just forgot art, left it behind,” she said. At Howard University, she majored in English. But she “happened into” courses on painting, drawing, art crafts and art history — “enough to know what art was about.”

And that’s where she discovered textile design.

With graduation on the horizon, “I realized that what I had studied was not what my life was going to be about.” One professor in particular — “and everybody in the art department — said you have to go further with what you’re doing.” They saw her natural talent, as did her boyfriend at the time, Marvin Holloway (remember that name).

“I had every intention of becoming something fancy, a fabric designer,” she said. She had a chance to go work in New York, “but I discovered that I really wanted to dye fabric, sort of as an art form or dye fabric for unique types of clothing. So I ended up teaching myself right out of college some of the techniques” for hand-stamping, painting and printing fabrics.

“And from there I began printing and dyeing cloth. And looking for a market — which I have never found!”

She moved back to Durham and started “a little fabric business.” She dyed cloth and even wholesaled a few orders to New York. She remembers living in an apartment one time and dyeing cloth out of her car, avoiding the landlady whenever she could.

Milton Dimmons

“I was very serious about it, but that wasn’t a real market. But I couldn’t afford to keep producing. I didn’t have the space. I was a novice artist, a novice business person and living in the South, without advice. So everything was first-hand. Try this, try that, try the other. And it hasn’t changed!”

In 1976, she moved to Macon with her husband, Milton Dimmons, who had relatives here. He was her “work partner.” He had a law degree, but he couldn’t get a job in the legal field. So he helped McQueen with the technical parts of her work. He made her tools. He taught himself to sew. He was a reader and a learner. “There was nothing magic about it. It was hard work. But he made a way,” she said. Dimmons died in 2010.

Over the next few decades, McQueen found her footing as an artist. “I was alone. I had to rethink everything.” She also made everything from hand-dyed socks and scarves to notecards.

She had her own one-woman show at the Museum of Arts & Sciences in 1988, and as word of her talent spread, she earned grants and fellowships to travel and teach. Everywhere she went, she made a point to talk to black quilters and black artists in each community, seeing what they did and how they did it.

After that first MAS exhibit, she made a large quilt called “Family Tree” — a story quilt — that’s part of the museum’s permanent collection.

“I thought, ‘I could give a little of my time to making story quilts if I thought they would be models for learning about history.’ So I began exploring quilts that taught lessons about issues related to black people.”

A tiny cotton boll.

During her trips to Africa, “I became very conscious of how important cotton was in their lives. I saw spinners and weavers and fabric artists, people who tie-dyed. At some point I came back to stories about slavery. What was the most impressive body of stories I saw were about the African person and the experience in the cotton fields. And I wanted to not only read everything I could about it but to make art about it.”

“I realized that all my life, that was what had been the moving spirit. It was my source.”

About three years ago, her life took another unexpected twist. Her college boyfriend — yes, Marvin Holloway — reached out to her on Facebook. He was living in Miami, but he often visited his mother, who lived in Albany. He wanted to pay McQueen a visit in Macon, talk about the old stories and people they had known 50 years ago and see some of her work.

Holloway and McQueen at the HMF office.

“I hadn't seen Marvin or heard from him, didn’t know anything about what had happened to him,” McQueen said. “He was the first person who encouraged my art” back at Howard. “I thought he liked me, but I think he just liked my art.” 

Soon, it was like old times.

By 2020, they were working together on the three-gallery exhibit that became McQueen’s 50-year retrospective, called “The Covering,” (https://bit.ly/3VIilT8) at the Museum of Arts and Sciences. It featured examples of her work from previous periods along with new paintings, handmade and hand-dyed clothing, and a room-size conceptual work. (Susan Welsh, the museum’s executive director, called it “a monumental creative statement.”)

“I concentrated on my experience as an artist as it related to cotton,” she said, drawing heavily from her trips to Africa. “So all of the pieces in the exhibit were from cotton. … I think about the world when I create. I think about the need for people to collect their memories and their histories.

“For me this was my contribution to culture, to history, to get that old sad story and make it brighter and bring it into a new century.” 

The commissions are still rolling in too. A recent one involves the Mount Willing Quilters near Fort Deposit, Ala. 

“They commissioned me to make a quilt that included the names of 150 people who had been enslaved but whose names had been forgotten or whose names were on the verge of being forgotten,” she said. It’s called “Somebody’s Calling My Name,” taken from the title of the old Negro spiritual.

“What you see in history is that black people had no names that were respected. We came here with African names. No one bothered to recognize those. If you remember (the book and TV miniseries) “Roots,” there was Kunta Kinte, who refused to give up his African name. … They sent (me) these 150 swatches. What I did, besides piecing them together to make a quilt, I also told a story through documents about how the names were lost.”

“If I can make art objects that will help to explain or express black people in history, in our struggles, I want to do that.”

In Macon, she’s been working for almost two years on an artist-initiated project called “The Canopy.” Holloway helped her with it, and he has been an invaluable collaborator on other projects too. 

“If you can imagine about 150 wall hangings, wall panels, that hang directly from the ceiling. Many of them are shaped. They’re shaped like cylinders. They will just hang down.”

It will be in place inside Macon Mall for most of 2023 as part of the city’s bicentennial celebration.

These days, McQueen sees the arc of her art — her life — in novel ways, like new colors reflecting from bright glass. She’s integrating quilting, photography, painting and the talking-story tradition into the modern, contemporary art canon.

“I have begun thinking about new ways of expressing old traditions and old issues and the past, but I’m working toward an understanding for the now — and for the future,” she said. “I don’t think I make quilts anymore. I’ve evolved. I think I’m taking quilting elements through a new passage and into an abstract form that is enlightening and encouraging.” 

It’s a kind of artistic cotton ginning, as it were, drawing even more uses from the cotton boll as she shares herself with the place she calls home. 

“I came from a community where people worked in cotton,” she said. “I have lived — surviving — working with my hands all my life, just as my family did. 

“We had hands, and that’s how we survived.”

‘TO ME, THAT’S A MAN OF HONOR’

Eustace Edward Green is back in the news.

And that’s saying something, since he died more than 90 years ago.

E.E. Green

Green — better known as E.E. Green — was a slave when he was born in 1845. He had no access to formal education. But by the time he died in 1931, he had become a doctor — maybe the first licensed Black doctor in Macon, owned a pharmacy and taught at two universities.

The more you learn about him, the more you wonder how he made time for all that he accomplished.

His life — and now attention to his home on Madison Street in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood — have whisked him back into the public eye. Earlier this year, the play “Healing a Haunted House” at the Grand Opera House told his story, and now his former home has made Historic Macon’s 2022 Fading Five list, after a nomination by attorney Nathan Corbitt.

Green became a free man when the Union army rode into his hometown, Wilmington, N.C., on Feb. 25, 1865. From that moment on, it was as if someone had lit a fuse in him, unleashing years of pent-up yearning for learning. That passion for education — for both himself and other Black men and women — was a driving force in his life. 

He found work as a carpenter by day and attended night school for two years. In that short period of time he readied himself for college at Lincoln University, from which he graduated in 1872 and also obtained a master’s degree.

Over the next 10 years, he taught school, worked as a court clerk and was a school principal. Then, at age 37, he served a term in the North Carolina House of Representatives, where he quickly became the leader of the African-American bloc, according to an article in the North Carolina Historical Review called “The Class of ’83: Black Watershed in the North Carolina General Assembly.”

“His deferential manner and quiet dignity helped him engineer strategic compromises, perhaps even allowing him to deal on nearly equal terms with white politicians in both parties,” according to the article. In fact, he was the first Black House member to be nominated for speaker of the House (He received two votes.)

Afterward, Green decided to become a doctor and attended Howard University Medical School, graduating in 1886. Then he, his wife and their children moved to Macon. They built their home in Pleasant Hill in 1890 at what was then 405 Madison St., near Macon’s main post office. Green also opened a pharmacy, and he was a landowner who became a landlord in the neighborhood.

Julia Rubens

“He did so much in his life and he chose Macon to settle his family in — and really became a backbone of the early Pleasant Hill community,” said Julia Rubens, who co-wrote “Healing a Haunted House” along with Dsto Moore and Nancy Cleveland. “It’s such a fascinating story and can provide many other generations a lot of hope, a lot of sense of Black excellence and a lot of inspiration.”

Green was not one to draw attention to himself, though. He was an advocate for education and encouraged other Black men and women to improve their lives through schooling. He took considerable time to share his knowledge and mentor people he knew, including a man named Henry Rutherford Butler, tutoring him in the evenings after work so Butler could go to college. (Butler, an Atlanta resident, would later become the first African-American to receive a pharmacy license in Georgia.)

This old marker near Green’s home gives another indication of his importance during his life.

Green himself started a drug store on Cotton Avenue in the 1890s called Central City Drug Store. Within a few years, he moved it to his home. No one is sure why, but a leading theory is that the rise of open intimidation and violence — including lynchings — against Black residents in the decades after Reconstruction played a role. And at times he may have treated patients in his home too.

You won’t find Green quoted often, and it’s not easy to build a comprehensive profile. After he became a doctor, leading Black periodicals of the day came to Macon, visited with him and wrote up his story. He is quoted in one, “The History of the American Negro and His Institutions,” on what he considered to be the road map for success for Black men and women: “Good character, square dealing with all people, strict attention to business, Christian education, and a goodly portion of this world’s goods honestly acquired.” 

The article continued: “The Bible he places as paramount, and its influence has been largely manifest in his career. He is also fond of American history and choice English literature. He has also traveled extensively in the South, West and Northwest.”

Green and his wife, Georgia, had four children. Two of his sons went on to work in medicine. His daughter was a college graduate — a rarity at the time — and married a doctor. 

He was active in Washington Avenue Presbyterian Church (he and his wife joined on Jan. 8, 1888), and he represented his presbytery in three General Assemblies. He was also chosen moderator of the Atlanta Synod at Macon in 1910.

There aren’t copies of lectures or speeches he gave after he founded (and served as president of) the Colored Medical Association, an organization for Black medical professionals in the state. He also served as president of the National Medical Association, a countrywide group for African-Americans in medicine.

But Green’s story is as much about the Pleasant Hill community as anything else. And there’s no better authority on that than Dr. Tom Duval, a tireless advocate for the neighborhood and teaching its rich history to today’s students. 

Dr. Tom Duval, outside Green’s home on Madison Street.

“Pleasant Hill was the place to be because these were people that were moving up,” he said. “They had a purpose in life. They knew who they were, and they were surrounding themselves with comparable people.”

“We had every social stratification living in this small area,” he said. “We had a microcosm of the world. Even though you may not have been blessed to be in a middle-income family, you were in close proximity to see other prosperous African-American people. So you had these mentors, these people that you could identify with, just a few blocks from where you’re living.

“Per square foot,” he said, “this place has probably produced more successful African-Americans than any place in the United States. Why is that? I think it is the combination of the history of the American Missionary Association,” a leading abolitionist group, “and also the griots that told our story and shared the story in schools and churches. Eventually we got a library where our story was preserved.” 

Rubens shares his sentiments about Pleasant Hill — and Green’s stature and influence during his lifetime.

“What stands out to me is an incredible life of determination and Black excellence,” she said. “He really represents the character of Pleasant Hill, which had all of these professionals who were just incredible strivers in their field. This was a man who only served one year in the statehouse and yet got nominated to be speaker of the House. This is a man who decided to complete medical school in his 40s. … This is someone for whom determination and belief in education was just vitally important.”

Green died in Detroit on June 1, 1931, while he was visiting family there. He is buried in Macon’s Linwood Cemetery.

Now, 91 years after Green’s death, Duval is glad he is getting the recognition that he deserves.   

“He could have come down here and been the big fish in the pond and just spent all his money on ostentatious stuff — great big house, great big car, fancy clothes,” Duval said. “But what did he do? He came down here and spent his time training the first pharmacists in this area, giving something back. And he did that with his personal time and money.

“To me, that’s a man of honor.”

FORGING A LIFE — AND A CALLING — FROM THE ASHES

Ellamae Ellis League was a “steel magnolia” long before actresses Julia Roberts, Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine helped popularize the phrase.

In 1922 — 100 years ago — she was a single mom with two children, with no idea how they would get by. Within 12 years, she had cleared more hurdles than a track star to open her own architectural practice in Macon, on the way to a pioneering 53-year career.

Shannon Fickling, a Macon architect and former Historic Macon staffer, knew League’s daughter, Jean Newton — a Harvard-trained architect — when Fickling was growing up, but she didn’t know all that League had accomplished.

“It was not until much later that it became obvious what a trailblazer (League) had been,” Fickling said. “What she was able to accomplish was astounding for her era, and most of the men I worked for had started their careers in her studio.” 

League’s high school graduation photo.

League was born in Macon in 1899. After high school, she attended Wesleyan College for just a year, leaving school at age 18 to marry George Forrest League, a man nine years her elder. (An omen? At their wedding, a candelabra near the couple caught fire while they were saying their vows, igniting League’s veil.) 

Within five years, the two had divorced, leaving the 23-year-old League in Macon with two small children to raise — and no means of support.

In her book “Dear Mr. Ellamae,” League’s granddaughter, Cheri Dennis, says her research of family letters suggested that friction in the marriage “stemmed from a feeling on Ellamae’s part that George Forrest treated her as less than his equal,” and “this kind of disregard was not acceptable.” 

Customs of the times were deeply ingrained, of course. If a woman worked outside the home — just 1 in 5 did  — it was usually to teach or as a clerk, a typist, a waitress or a telephone operator.

Ellamae with her two children, Jean and Joe.

“Finding herself divorced and alone to provide for her two children must have felt daunting in 1922,” Dennis says in her book. “I would imagine that Southern ladies were her biggest critics and secretly harbored envy at her bravery, but behaved to the contrary.”

Change was coming. The 19th amendment — giving women the right to vote — had passed in 1920. Still, the prevailing attitude in many quarters was that women should not work outside the home — that they would be taking jobs away from men who needed them more.

Six generations of League’s family on her mother’s side had been architects, and an uncle, Charles Edward Choate, was still practicing. The firm of Elliott Dunwody and William Oliphant hired her to do office work.

 That setting ignited her drive to become an architect herself, but there were obstacles. Georgia Tech, the primary venue for architecture education in Georgia, did not admit women — and wouldn’t until after World War II. The only opportunity open to League was through an apprenticeship of up to 10 years.

 So that’s what she did at Dunwody & Oliphant from 1922 to 1929. She  also took correspondence courses and studied for a year in France.

This was League’s office near First Presbyterian Church.

In 1934, in the clutches of the Great Depression, she opened her own office on the third floor of the Grand Building. In 1940, she moved to an office (that she designed) across the street between what is now The Library Ballroom building and First Presbyterian Church. At the time, just 2 percent of American architects were women, and women who were principals in their own firms were virtually nonexistent.

“Ellamae had to forge her own way and seemed to spend as little time as possible thinking about it or apologizing to anyone else about it,” Dennis said.

Most female architects specialized — or were expected to specialize — in residential architecture. League, though, took on a variety of complex projects over the years and set herself apart.

 In her first year of practice alone, she was commissioned to build a reservoir, two church buildings, a service station, six homes, and two restorations. One of her earliest commissions was to help reconstruct one of Macon’s earliest buildings, the 1806 Fort Hawkins blockhouse.

 Later, she added school buildings, public housing, office buildings and several projects for Bibb Manufacturing Co. She took on the huge addition of the old Macon Hospital in the early 1950s, and she designed the sanctuary and youth center at Mulberry United Methodist Church, where she worshiped.

“She loved that she could build things, make them work and restore order and beauty,” Dennis says in her book (available for $9.95 at the Historic Macon office, with proceeds donated to HMF.) Her “restoration came not in making a marriage work but in making herself work.”

When demolition threatened Macon's Grand Opera House in 1967 — right across the street from her office — League helped form the Macon Arts Council to save it, and she later supervised the restoration of that building in 1969 and 1970. (The narrow park between the Grand and First Presbyterian Church, in fact, is named for her.)

 She also designed the “Grand Topper” house,” built to raise money to save and restore the Grand. Cher and Gregg Allman were among the home’s owners over the years.

“Old buildings and their pasts did not scare her,” Dennis said. 

League’s home in the Shirley Hills neighborhood.

League’s house in the Shirley Hills neighborhood incorporated forward-thinking elements, including the size and placement of windows that provided cross-ventilation. The tri-level floor plan, built-in garage and use of natural materials — redwood siding and roof shingles, for example — were popular on the West Coast at the time, but they would not become prevalent in Georgia for years.

“Architecture has to follow the trends in living,” League once said. “There are new materials, new technologies, new lifestyles. … Life’s moving tides must be embraced and adaptation made if one is to be successful.”

(League’s daughter, Jean, lived in the house with her mom for a while. Jean’s daughters, Edith Newton Wilson and Suzy Newton, established the Jean League Newton AIA Fund at the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, which pays for a summer internship at Historic Macon.)

Historic Macon recently acquired the League home and is restoring it, thanks to a $75,000 grant from The 1772 Foundation. That project will be the first in a new HMF program, Matchless Macon, which will focus on renewing architectural and cultural marvels across Macon. Historic Macon is hosting this year’s Major Donor reception at the house on May 24.

League often kept to herself. “Privacy was a code she lived by, so she didn’t make small talk or gossip,” Dennis said. “She loved purely, giving and expecting absolutely nothing in return.

“She had a steel frame with a soft belly. She never slumped, even in her 90s, displaying her steel. When she did suffer or was sick, she dug in quietly and did what she needed to do.”

She was “a shining example of stoicism who taught (her son Joe) by her example to suck it up.”

League had plenty of outside interests. She loved to bake (cakes and divinity were among her favorites). She loved to read and go to plays, to entertain and “to be quiet.”

She dressed simply but with “quiet elegance,” Dennis said. “She loved wools and silks and clothing that felt good and was finely crafted. Her home — and mine — she built with natural redwood that was untreated because she loved the richness of it, and it was combined with old brick that had scars and signs of age.” Ellamae loved the stories these natural materials told of growth and struggles.

“Like life, these old things could be restored and refreshed and reused to build something beautiful.” 

In an interview with The Macon Telegraph in 1962, League refused to seek any special consideration as a woman in the male-dominated architectural field. She told a reporter: “I am always an architect. Not a woman architect, but an architect. I encourage women going into the profession not to concentrate on being separate as a woman but to concentrate on being a good architect.”

League was just the fourth woman registered as an architect in Georgia, and in 1944 she became the first woman in the state to be named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (The notification letter was addressed to “Mr. Ellamae League.) 

Over the years, she mentored — and inspired — scores of young architects. “She filled the office with budding architects and let them get a taste” of the profession, Dennis said. “She was at her best when she was teaching young people.”

She practiced from 1922 until she retired in 1975. She died in 1991 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery.

“Ellamae had a peace about her that I couldn’t understand until I reached my own golden years,” Dennis says in her book. “The peace came from ashes, like it always does, ashes of loss but with gratitude for all that she had. She never seemed to look back.

“Many live life with the ending of their story in mind,” Dennis said. “Some start out wanting to hold a particular office or do a particular thing to contribute to society or make a contribution so their name lands in the history books. Ellamae’s was not such a story. She let life events take her where she was going in large part. I think that she liked her story in the end.”

‘IT’S UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE IN TOWN’

They couldn’t help but notice the statuesque old building when they’d roll by it on their Saturday morning bike rides.

There it sat on the corner, forlorn and forgotten, a for-sale sign beckoning. It was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of old buildings in the area. 

But some folks knew that the old “engine house” at 950 Third St. — completed in 1870 — had a higher and better use.

“These kinds of buildings are exactly what Historic Macon should be working on,” David Thompson, one of those Saturday riders, said at the time.

But Max Crook, another longtime HMF supporter and former board chair, upped the ante: “This is where Historic Macon’s office ought to be!”

It was a point of civic pride when it was built. A brief item in the Telegraph and Messenger on Dec. 28, 1869, noted that “the new engine house of Mechanics’ Fire Company No. 4, … is rapidly approaching completion, and when finished it will be one of the most handsome and conveniently located houses of the kind in the city.”

Notice the tower — long gone — in this old photo of the engine house.

The first floor held the fire engine, the “hose wagon,” other equipment — and the horses that pulled the volunteer firefighters’ wagon. The second floor was a large, open space that served as dormitory, office and meeting space. Here, too, was the hose tower, used to dry the fabric hoses. 

At the time, there was a back entrance to the building. After a fire run, the horse-drawn wagon pulled in there so it’d be facing forward for the next emergency. The volunteers took off the horse collars, harnesses and other gear and went home — or back to work.

A look up to the top of the engine house tower, inside the building.

The fire company itself was organized June 1, 1868, made up of mechanics who worked nearby (hence the name.) Their first engine was a hand-me-down: the old hand engine of Protection Fire Company No. 1, which had gotten a “steamer” — a steam engine.

A volunteer fire department, the Macon Fire Brigade, had formed in 1832, about four months after a fire wiped out a two-block business section of Mulberry Street. In 1854, City Council passed an ordinance to organize a Macon Fire Department.

By 1887, though, a decline in the volunteer system was evident. Volunteers lost money when they left their jobs to answer a fire call, and many of them got pressure from their bosses at work. The first paid company went into service that year, with 12 men as “the nucleus,” according to The Macon Daily Telegraph. Volunteer units disbanded.

You can see the old state Farmers Market across the street in these photos.

As for the old Mechanics Engine House No. 4, it was active until 1932, according to the Vintage Macon Facebook site. In the years afterward, it was a social services department, a mechanics shop for the Fire and Police departments, a sewing room, a day care, a community center, a TV repair shop, and a tax preparation office, among other uses. Old-timers will remember the state Farmers Market that operated across the street for years.

But there it sat in April 2018 — and Crook’s challenge.

It was an unlikely proposition. Historic Macon had moved into a new office on Poplar Street in 2017, and here was Crook suggesting yet another move just 2 ½ years later.

The old firehouse had been on the market awhile, and there had been no strong offers. Ideally, a private developer would have come in to “get this building back to life,” Garlington said. Only that wasn’t happening.

So as a “developer of last resort,” Historic Macon began kicking the tires. In May 2018, Crook and Garlington went inside the building to look around.

Everything downstairs — where offices had been off and on — was covered up, but at least it had kept up with the times, with wall-to-wall carpeting, drop ceilings and more.

Upstairs? “It looked like it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years,” Garlington recalled.

As radical as the prospect had seemed at one time, the thinking now became clear. The building — the oldest standing masonry firehouse in Georgia, we believe — needed saving. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

“So if we have an opportunity now when this building is for sale, let’s proactively put our money where our mouth is and buy it,” Garlington explained.

In August 2018, the HMF board approved the purchase. We closed on the sale that October.

Thanks to our Fading Five fund, Historic Macon was able to negotiate a “bargain sale.” The building appraised for $170,000. We bought it for $135,000. The owner got a $35,000 write-off.

It still needed a lot of work, of course. We asked to reallocate money in the Downtown Loft Revolving Loan Fund, funded by the Peyton Anderson Foundation, the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, the 1772 Foundation, and the E.J. Grassmann Trust. They agreed. We broke the big news during our 2020 annual meeting video.

Work began in summer 2020, in the early stages of the pandemic.  Renovations were fairly straightforward, Garlington said, although there were hurdles. The office space is actually smaller than our former Poplar Street home, which we’ll be leasing.

Our construction crew even found old photos and re-created the huge doors that covered the original arched entryway. (And just so you know: We think there were two fire poles in the building back in the day. There were none by the time we got involved.)

For all the project’s challenges, we’re proud of the outcome. It’s a bold move. We’re one more jewel on a street that is now teeming with new energy. The renovated Robert Train Building is right up the street, and our new duplexes in Beall’s Hill are rising out of the ground as we speak.

“Not only is it an iconic building that needed to be saved, needed a good use, but in this case we are again pushing the boundaries of what people think of when they think of downtown,” Garlington said. “We’re generating activity … and revitalizing the Oglethorpe Street corridor for other investments.”

Marvin Riggins, who retired as Macon-Bibb County’s fire chief in 2020, got a recent look at our new office and was pleased.

“I’m just so happy to see this building preserved,” he said. “It is a treasure for our community — and our city. It adds historic value to the entire community.

“Without vision, it would be lost.”

With our move, we’re also closer to our Flea Market warehouse, just two blocks away. And our shop on Second Street is nearby.

Even though we’ve moved in, we’re not through. There are plans to dig up all the asphalt in front, uncovering old cobblestones and putting down turf — and trees — that old photos show were once there.

“It will be beautiful one day,” Garlington promised.

We held an open house in September 2020, letting members see the early stages of our renovation work. We’ll have another one soon to reveal the result.

“This building has not looked this good — ever, frankly,” Garlington said. “When it was built it was lovely. But it had horse stalls. It was functional. Now, it’s beautiful and unlike anything else in town.”

---

A BIG THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

Funders*:

Peyton Anderson Foundation;

1772 Foundation;

E.J. Grassmann Trust;

Community Foundation of Central Georgia;

Beverly Knight Olson;

Knight Foundation.

*Most of these funders initially invested in HMF's Downtown Loft Revolving Fund in 2013. After the success of our 551 Cherry Street project in 2015, we couldn't find another suitable building. As such, these funders generously reallocated the revolved funds to the rehabilitation of the Fire Hall.

Trades:

RDG Ventures — donated services;

Tom and Christian Yun — lead contractors;

Pro-Aire — HVAC subcontractor;

Bowman Electric — electrical subcontractor;

Ricky Hopson — plumbing subcontractor;

Michelle Garlington Interiors — design;

Shannon Fickling — architecture;

Laurie Fickling — landscape design (not yet complete);

Electrical Design Consultants — engineering;

PiTech Engineers — in-kind structural engineers;

Total Design Services — HVAC and plumbing engineers;

Cherry Street Energy — solar;

Dublin Glass — storefront doors and glass office doors;

Willingham Sash and Door;

The Floor Guy — partially donated services;

Noland — donated plumbing fixtures;

Mac Scarbary — plumber;

Georgia Artisan — site work;

Geotechnical & Environmental Consultants;

Lisenby and Associates;

Cana Communications;

Burt & Burt;

Mantai Remodeling;

Advent Business Interiors;

Traditions in Tile & Stone;

Builder's FirstSource;

Warno-Cam;

Trading Post Moving & Storage — donated moving services;

Olde Town Shutters & Interiors;

IconiCraft Custom Cabinets;

Elite Cleaning Services;

Big Hair Productions.

LIVING IN — AND SHARING — ‘A WORK OF ART’

Jim Barfield and Walter Elliott know many of Macon’s streets better than the post office.

They know the history of homes on those streets. Who designed them. Who lives there. Who used to live there. 

They’ve channeled much of that knowledge into their latest book, “Mid-Century Macon 1945-1969,” which celebrates the mid-century modern architecture found all across town. It is due out in early 2022.

“Architecture is the most accessible form of art,” Barfield said. “When you walk down the street or drive down the street, you see a work of art, and just like other art, there’s good and there’s bad and there’s indifferent. But architecture is an art. Each architect is an artist, creating something. It’s a statement.”

The book — their third together — was years in the making. As they mention in the preface, two friends “gave them the hard sell” more than a decade ago and asked them to consider a book on Macon’s “contemporary” buildings of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. The country was in the grips of the Great Recession at the time, though, and neither one felt the time was right.

Now, there’s a huge interest in all things mid-century modern. But there’s also a lack of knowledge about the style, which features simplicity and integration with nature (think Frank Lloyd Wright), with clean lines, exposed beams and large windows, among other characteristics.

“You’ve got a whole new generation of young people here that it’s all pretty new to, and they are red hot on this design,” Elliott said. “We wanted to reach out to this young generation and make them aware ... of what our community has to offer. So we hope this book will show the richness (of the style) that we’ve got here.”

In America, it sprang to life after World War II. When GIs returned home, the country was ablaze with energy on every front, and architects found a liberating outlet in the mid-century modern style.

The book, in fact, is dedicated to architects “who contributed to Macon’s wealth of fine architecture.”

Ellamae Ellis League

“Macon has always been blessed with great architects,” Barfield said. “We were very fortunate that those people, after World War II, such as Ellamae Ellis League, she was willing to adapt and learn and change her style. A lot of that was due to her daughter, Jean, who had gone to Radcliffe and learned at Harvard from the masters of modern architecture.”

In time they found kindred architectural colleagues in Macon who embraced the adventurous style and were willing to move in a new direction, including Billy Webb, Jack Holliday, John Dennis, and the Dunwody brothers, Elliott and Gene, among plenty of others. 

“The two stars were undoubtedly Jack Holliday and Billy Webb — Bernard Webb,” Barfield said. “They just did amazing things. I saw things that they had accomplished and the creative ideas that they incorporated. It extended my respect and admiration for these people.”

They were talented, and they were flexible too.

“They seemed to jump at the opportunity to do something a little bit different and carry it forward, show their creativity,” Barfield said. “Each (concept) was a work of art. Each one was a new creation. They did so much, and we’re so lucky that … very few have been lost.”

Elliott knows the style firsthand. He was born and raised in Macon, but he moved away for jobs a couple of times. He returned 20 years ago and began an architectural photography business (“It was a missed career. I should have been an architect.”)

He remembers when he was 4 years old and rode past the Old Holton Road house he now lives in. He turned to his mother and said:  “Mom, look at that house. Isn’t that a neat house?

She didn’t care for it. “It’s too moderne,” said his mom, who told him she preferred a classical look.

When he got the chance to buy the house a few years ago, “It couldn’t have been a better fit,” Elliott said. “It was absolutely wonderful.”

And it’s a perfect example of the mid-century modern style. It’s nestled in the woods, with simple lines and lots of big windows.

A DUTY TO SHARE

For the book, they had a good idea of some homes they hoped to feature. They knew several owners. They cold-called others. They built lists and compared notes. Then they set about their mission, visiting the owners and scheduling the shoots — which usually took less than two hours.

“Walter is very conscious of the light,” said Barfield, who’s from Vidalia and remained in Macon after attending graduate school at Mercer. “He would know what time of day we needed to go so the light looks exactly right.”

If a site posed something of a challenge, Elliott shot during “the golden hour” — the window right at dusk before the sun sets. You’ll notice the stunning results in one particular photo of a lighted Hillandale Circle home, its pool in the foreground, as the sun throws orange against the sky.

“We knew a lot of the ones we wanted, and it was just a matter of convincing people to be included,” Barfield said. “Most of them were glad to be included.”

The book, available for purchase at historicmacon.org, includes 40 sites, and several of them are on Hillandale.

One of those homes belongs to Dr. Onajefe Nelson and her husband, Dr. Ayo Adeniyi.

She, too, hesitated to participate at first. “I’m a very private person,” she explained. But “everybody spoke so well of them,” so she agreed.

And she’s glad they did. She was thrilled with the finished product and came away with a new appreciation for her home — built in the late ’50s — thanks to the lighting touches and perspectives that Elliott incorporated.

Elliott “has a knack for getting the light just right,” she said, which helped accentuate the home’s beauty. 

When he shoots, Elliott uses a tripod for stability and a full-size camera sensor, which yields great detail.

“And I make very free use of a wide-angle lens. I’ve got one that works real well without being too extreme.”

For Barfield’s part — the words — “A great deal of it is from the homeowners,” he said. “That’s my best source. And sometimes it’s from the previous homeowner. I don’t go to the library and research the dates and specific details like that very much. I’m trying to keep it on a more interesting level than just factual history. 

“I try to include social history into it. The people who lived in the house are an important part. And the architects and their personalities — something about them. I interview people who knew Billy Web or Jack Holliday or Ellamae League. My process is very rewarding.”

They want readers to know that the homeowners who participated in the project feel a keen sense of stewardship — almost a duty — to share their home  with others.

“These people are not showing off what they have,” Barfield said. “They feel they live in a structure that is a work of art, and they’re willing to share it with the public.” 

They hope readers come away from the book with a better understanding of what mid-century architecture is — and an appreciation of the architects and their work.

“Macon is a treasure trove of good architecture — not just mid-century modern — but we were in the vanguard of that as well here,” Barfield said.

“We captured that time and the personality of those people in their houses. And I’m so glad of that. We’ve documented a little snapshot of the cultural history of Macon at a particular time.

“They won’t stay the same,” he said. “They're going to be changed. But we got ’em at this time.”

‘WE’RE ALL CAPABLE OF MUCH MORE’

Home improvement work comes in all shapes and sizes, especially when you’re in the historic preservation business.

It’s not always the byproduct of a miter saw or a nail gun, though. And it’s not always what you see — or think you see.

Susann Lavold (L) gives instruction in our class.

Susann Lavold taught us that.

The “visual artist” flew to Savannah from Big Timber, Montana, recently to teach members of our construction crew and our apprentices “faux-painting” techniques that create the look of various types of stone, including granite, marble and sandstone. It was fascinating.

Lavold, 70, earned her chops the old-fashioned way. She grew up on a ranch near the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains in Montana and attended a one-room schoolhouse when she was young. There was no indoor plumbing.

Her mother — a transplant from Connecticut — was a  “naturally talented” artist, but she never developed that talent.

Lavold did. Her mom — recognizing Lavold’s artistic bent as a preschooler — taught her how to “shade” and draw in perspective. By the time Lavold got to grade school, her art teachers confessed that they could not teach her anything. She was left to cut out paper snowflakes and weave place mats out of strips of construction paper.

Later, at the University of Montana, “conceptual art” was in vogue. (The idea that an artist presents is more important than its appearance.) Lavold wanted no part of that. She took off to Europe so she could “learn the techniques of the old masters,” spending almost a year there studying the best collections of their work in 18 different countries.

Standing inches away from their paintings, she could see the attention to detail. The way they used color to create light, depth — and sometimes illusion.

It was a time when museum visitors “could get up close and examine brush strokes” or see the precise chisel marks in statues. “You could really examine what was done.”

Her studies took her to “ancient places — Greek, Roman and Viking archaeological digs. I was in old palaces and castles. I was seeing firsthand what had been done down through the ages — some of the techniques that were used in building. My interest developed there.”

It had a profound impact on her career.

In Savannah, we attended classes at the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, thanks to the generosity of the Watson-Brown Foundation.  Lavold had two goals for her students. 

Brothers Brandon (L) and Christopher Haun refine their “faux painting” technique.

“It’s about learning the methods, the techniques, the tools and the materials” involved in the work. Secondly, “It’s to show people that they’re much more capable of doing things than they think they can do. We’re all capable of much more than we give ourselves credit for.”

The work doesn’t have to be perfect, she told us. “That’s the biggest hump. You’re creating an illusion. It’s the illusion of stone or wood. It doesn’t have to be exactly like it.”

Reed Purvis, our carpenter in residence, uses a kitchen and sea sponge to get just the right texture.

For our purposes, it wasn’t just about the colors we used, although those were important (And we made some of our own paint too.) Texture is  key, so we practiced painting with everything from kitchen and sea sponges to leaves, feathers and pine straw to create the desired effect.

After we practiced one day, we took a break upstairs at the museum to see practical applications of faux painting. There we found an entire wall of Sheetrock that looked like shiny, yellow stone. We saw wooden creations — a mantel and columns, for example — that you’d swear were marble. We looked at painted wooden flooring that looked like inlaid tile.

It was hard to believe that this wall isn’t stone.

We knew we wouldn’t use the techniques we learned in Savannah in the day-to-day work at our rehab projects. But we saw the value in knowing how to do it.

Chamille Blount shows us some of her work.

“HMF could use these techniques on request-for-proposal preservation projects that come on our radar,” said Christopher Haun, our director of construction. “These techniques are in a very specific niche of historic preservation and are an important aspect (of it) that would be implemented in local historic properties such as the Hay House.”

Apprentice Chamille Blount also saw its value in “retaining a historical reference or context to root history.” Reed Purvis, our carpenter in residence, figured we could use the technique here and there “to make our homes more attractive for a low cost.”

And apprentice Liam Purvis could see occasional spot applications on our projects.

Apprentice Liam Purvis checks the colors of his “faux painting.”

“Say, if the house has tile or stonework that has deteriorated, we can bring the look back with faux painting without shooting up the price.”

For Lavold, historic preservation is “everything you do to a building.” That means trying your best to retain “all of the historic material that is practical.”

“We’re such a wasteful society,” she said. “We take pieces of furniture that look beat up, for example, and it gets tossed out. We tear down old buildings that could be revamped. We’ve been groomed to be consumers, where we go and buy more constantly instead of doing what humans have done traditionally, and that’s to look at what you’ve got and transform it into something that’s appealing and at the same time useful. 

“That’s what the basis of any art originally was. It had a function. It wasn’t simply to decorate a wall.”

‘SOMETHING ABOUT THIS FIRED ME UP’

Greg Albert couldn’t believe his ears.

The man on the local TV news said something about the free use of tools. All you had to do was sign up, reserve what you needed, then come pick it up.

“He said the address and he said ‘free.’ I said, ‘I can afford that!’ I went down there to see what they had, thinking ‘What’s the catch?’

“Well, there ain’t been no catch.” 

Albert soon tapped into Historic Macon Rehabs’ new tool library, and he has become one of its most prolific customers. The new program offers all kinds of yard and construction tools that folks can borrow — for free — for their projects.

In the last month, Albert’s initiative has shown that preservation and restoration involve far more than just lumber, hammers and nails. Now that he’s a regular customer, he’s spreading the word too. Not only is he using the tools to make his own yard look better, he’s going up and down Lilly Avenue, in the Unionville neighborhood, helping his neighbors, many of whom are older.

“Something about this fired me up,” he said. “It gave me inspiration.”

Greg Albert makes the neighborhood field look better.

Early one recent morning, he was across the street from his home starting to mow an open field — well over an acre — that kids in the neighborhood use to play ball. But he also had a blower that he walks up and down the street with, clearing off leaves, dirt, cigarette butts and whatever’s in his path.

Ivory Manning was grabbing a breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast on his front porch before heading off to a painting job. He said Albert mowed his yard recently.

“We watch out for one another over here,” the 65-year-old said. “I’m proud to be his neighbor.”

Arthur Hall, another friend, stopped to chat while driving by.

He said he was looking out a window at home one day and saw Albert blowing away debris near his home.

“He went to the end of the street. The next thing I know, he’s coming back around on the other side of the street. He gets out there like he’s a teenager.” (Albert will turn 70 on July 3.)

“If you find a better neighbor than him, it’s God sent,” Hall said. “That’s a good man.”

Tracey Jackson and her dog, Candy.

Added Tracey Jackson, another neighbor: “He does something just about every day. … I tell him to get out of the heat.” 

‘PEOPLE LOVE IT’

Reed Purvis explains the new tool library to Channel 13’s Suzanne Lawler.

Reed Purvis, who oversees the program for Historic Macon Rehabs, said the word is slowly getting out about the new program, which is run through the MyTurn platform (https://bit.ly/35DFvSb). It began May 18.

For many, the concept is strange at first. As Historic Macon worked on the program, it connected with The Well CDC in Akron, Ohio, (https://thewellakron.com/) and picked up good tips for a successful program. Purvis also talked to representatives of the Asheville (N.C.) Tool Library to glean their best practices. 

So far, Macon homeowners have signed up for 55 tool loans. Leaf blowers have been the most popular. (There are no gas-powered tools. They’re either corded or have batteries.)

“It’s going really well,” Purvis said. “I definitely expected more wood-working tools to be checked out. We could have spent more money on yard equipment.”

The program was able to stretch its buying dollars thanks to a generous discount on tools from Riverside Ace Hardware.

Judging by responses from those returning tools and comments he’s seen on social media, “People love it,” Purvis said. “I’ve only gotten positive feedback.”

A couple of people have said they wish the program offered a chain saw they could borrow. So that option may be coming in the near future.

It’s all part of an ambitious initiative to boost the trades presence in Macon. Historic Macon Rehabs hired three preservation carpentry apprentices for a 10-week program, training them for entry-level construction jobs. The nonprofit also has begun a series of Saturday workshops to equip homeowners with the knowledge to tackle basic projects on their own. A grant from the Watson-Brown Foundation funded the pilot programs.

The quality of tools in the tool library has impressed Albert.

Before he started taking advantage of the new program, he had to use “whatever I could find, whenever I could find it.” He had no equipment, and even if he did, he has no place to store tools. (“My house is too small.”)

And if you borrow from a friend, “if it breaks down on my shift, it’s my fault.”

Albert and his wife, Sheridan, moved from Oakland to Macon — where she grew up — in 2003, when she took a teaching job with the Seventh-day Adventist school system. He was born and raised in Oakland, and he’s a big Raiders fan.

He has a ready smile and friendly nature, and it was clear during a recent visit how much his neighbors like him and appreciate all the work he’s doing.

But Albert isn’t one to toot his own horn (“It’s just being neighborly.”) 

He’s trying to make a small difference in his neighborhood in a way that he can.

And in doing so, he hopes he can inspire others to follow suit.

“People notice me with good-quality tools,” he said. “I try to introduce them to the tool library. I tell ’em, “You don’t have to wait for one. You can do it yourself. People see that it’s working.

“And it’s great for me,” he said. “It has me planning more projects.”

‘That’s where you get your joy from’

As home-improvement projects go, it was nothing like the 1986 Tom Hanks movie “The Money Pit.”

Still, Janet Williams needed extensive work done on her nearly 100-year-old home in the Vineville Historic District when she and her husband, Pete, moved to Macon from Decatur.

They were getting two full bathrooms redone, replacing fascia, wiring, copper gutters — and much more.

Finding a carpenter — especially one who could work on an older home — was among the biggest hurdles they faced.

“If I had a carpenter in my bag, I would be doing all sorts of things I’m not doing now,” she said. “We need it now more than ever, and it’s hard to find people who are good at it. 

“I would love to see people take it up as a calling.”

You’d get no argument from Shawn Stafford.

Stafford opened Stafford Builders and Consultants on Napier Avenue in 1999, although he’d worked in construction in Macon for 12 years before that. His niches over the years have been church construction and work on federal properties.

He needs a variety of folks across the trades spectrum to carry out his projects, from masons to carpenters. Especially carpenters.

“When I was a kid, being a carpenter was a big deal. We saw the value in it,” the 70-year-old said. “We’ve downplayed it so much (over the years) that we stopped teaching it. But it’s a skill that’s needed in this town.”

That perspective is one reason Historic Macon is trying to help.

During a recent news conference, Executive Director Ethiel Garlington announced a series of trades-related initiatives that will begin this month. He said Historic Macon’s has a standing challenge of finding skilled tradespeople — especially carpenters — who are willing to take on work at historic properties.

He cited surveys by the Associated General Contractors of America and  the National Association of Home Builders that lamented the lack of skilled workers and the difficulty in hiring them. And for historic preservation projects, that shortfall is even more pronounced.

Now, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Historic Macon will soon test three initiatives that aim to make a difference.

“Our hope,” Garlington said, “is that learning from these pilot programs, we’ll be able to raise additional capital and grow and expand the successful programs.”

First, Historic Macon soon will be hiring three trades apprentices for a 10-week course that starts June 1. The program will blend on-the-job training with classroom instruction and travel to prominent sites in the region. The goal is for the three apprentices to find full-time construction jobs after the program. 

Historic Macon also will hold a series of workshops that help teach homeowners and professionals alike, often with hands-on instruction. First up is a tool safety session called “Fingers and Toes” May 15. On May 22, “Stile-ish Doors” will show how to renovate both wooden and glass doors.

But that’s not all. Coming soon, HMF will open a new tool library, where Macon residents can swing by and borrow a variety of tools for their home projects. Stay tuned for details.

We know these initiatives aren’t a cure-all. They’re a small step in trying to improve the situation. But it’s a start.

For Stafford, another part of the solution would entail bringing training programs for the building trades back to schools.

“Why not teach it just like you do engineering?” he asked. “It’s a workforce crisis. You can talk to a thousand contractors and hear the same thing.” (Stafford said he’d pay a crackerjack carpenter $60,000 right out of the gate.)

He used an analogy to drive home the opportunity that many young adults are missing out on.

“If you saw a gold bar on the floor, you’d reach down and pick it up,” he said. But too many people are walking on by and “don’t see the value” in learning a trade.

“These kids need to learn to love this industry,” he said. “I can never remember a day I didn’t want to get to work.”

Johnny McClendon, who owns IconiCraft Custom Cabinets, has watched the decline for the last generation. He remembers the boom times of the early ’90s, then a slow slide since then.

 “I’m deeply embedded in this business, and it’s just gone away,” the 59-year-old said of the talent pool. “It’s gotten scarcer and scarcer and scarcer.”

He’s doing his part too. He has a 19-year-old working for him, helping him learn the ropes of the craft. But McClendon knows he could leave at any time.

“It’s just hard to find people with a love for it,” he said.

And there’s another aspect. Carpenters are tailor-made to become construction superintendents, Stafford said. They’re on a job from start to finish. They read blueprints, devise layouts, help frame up a project, do trim work — and plenty more.

“They see everything in between. They see the process more than any other trade.”

Helping Stafford on a job site next-door to the H&H Soul Food restaurant recently was 69-year-old Eric Turner. He said his grandfather taught him a lot about carpentry and woodworking when he was young. As a teenager he began making house repairs, “and I just kept going with it.”

He acknowledged that carpentry is not for everybody. You’ve got to pay attention and be willing to listen and learn. And it’s rugged. You work in the winter cold and the summer heat, often outdoors.

“You’ve got to withstand the elements,” he said, and not everyone wants to do that these days.

But there’s a certain satisfaction in working with your hands, seeing something you build take shape, “and you’ll always have a job — anytime or anywhere.” 

“That’s where you get your joy from,” he said. “You can always look back and say I had a part in that.”