Will yesterday's history in photos be preserved?

When my wife and her sister cleaned out their old family home last year, my wife inherited hundreds of photographs dating back to long before the house was constructed in 1968. The photos included professional portraits by a renowned photographer and snapshots taken by my father-in-law and others. Some were loose in file folders and boxes; others were taped or pasted into crumbling photo albums and scrapbooks. She recognized some of the people in the photos, but not others.

She has spent much of her time for the past six months sorting through the photos and deciding what to do with them. She bought a desktop scanner and has scanned several hundred photos. Some photos were badly faded but could be enhanced with the scanning software so that the improved images were worth keeping. The pictures ranged in age from more than 100 years to about 50 years.

The scrapbooks also included pictures from her dad’s World War II Navy service, along with some souvenir menus, programs and orders that he had saved. For the first time, my wife got to see photos of the LST her dad commanded in the Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific. Photos show him as a thin, handsome young man in his early 20s bearing the responsibility of keeping his ship’s crew safe while defeating the America’s enemies.

Because both of her parents grew up in Goldsboro, my wife eventually made a connection with Marty Tschetter, the reference and local history librarian at the Wayne County Public Library. Tschetter had obtained copies of many of the photos by A.O. Clement, a prominent Goldsboro photographer who just happened to be my wife’s mother’s step-grandfather. My wife was able to identify some of the unidentified people in the library’s collection of Clement photos.

 The library’s collection of old photos preserves a visual history of eastern North Carolina for future generations. And my wife has been able to share her scanned family images with her sisters, cousins and nephews.

 Younger generations seldom seem to take an interest in genealogy, family history and old photos. I can recall laughing at the “old cars” in the snapshots in my parents’ photo albums. My father-in-law, who died in 2010, said he wished he had paid attention to his grandmother’s tales about life during the Civil War (her family home was occupied by Union soldiers). With few exceptions, our children show little interest in the photos my wife has so painstakingly sorted and scanned. She is glad the Goldsboro library wanted her old scrapbooks of people she couldn’t identify because she didn’t want to throw them in the trash.

Squirreled away in our home are thousands of print photos, slides and, more recently, digital images of my wife and me, our children and grandchildren. Will these be saved and preserved or will they add to the landfill refuse?

 Inspired by my wife’s discoveries and her hard work at the computer desk, I have made an appointment with two of my first cousins to try to scan and preserve all the Tarleton family photographs that we can find. All of us are into our seventh decade of life, so there is some urgency to do it now or never. We’ve already missed our parents’ generation. I hope I can stir some interest among the folks back in Anson County, where most of the family resided.

           

This post originally appeared in The Wilson Times Feb. 16, 2019.

Goldsboro shows off preservation strategy

The city of Goldsboro turned out its top brass for a presentation to an entourage from Wilson Wednesday afternoon. Mayor Al King, City Manager Joe Huffman and Police Chief Tim Bell were all on hand as Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. executive director Julie Thompson presented a series of slides showing Goldsboro's amazing success in turning abandoned properties and vacant lots into taxpaying assets while attracting millions of dollars in private investment.

Preservation of Wilson board members watched the impressive presentation jealously. POW would like to repeat Goldsboro's success in Wilson. One of the keys to their success, the Goldsboro officials said, was having everyone involved, from city staff to city council members to enthusiastic private citizens who are investing in the downtown Goldsboro restoration. If broad support is essential, the turnout Wednesday in the Goldsboro City Hall Annex was not a good omen.

Only one Wilson City Council member — Doris Jones — attended. Mayor Bruce Rose was also there, reiterating his support  for historic preservation. City Manager Grant Goings and city historic preservationist Lu-Ann Monson were there. POW executive director Kathy Bethune had invited all of the Wilson City Council members. Only Jones came; the other six council members missed out on seeing the benefits Wilson's neighboring city has reaped from a philosophy of preserving, reusing and renovating historic properties.

Bethune had also invited Wilson County Manager Ellis Williford and all seven county commissioners. None attended. Wilson County has been indifferent or hostile to historic preservation, so their absence was not surprising.

Thompson and Huffman said that in talking to civic groups about Goldsboro's preservation efforts, they do not talk so much about the public good involved in preserving the city's historic architecture and neighborhoods. What they emphasize are the economic benefits of the program.

Like other cities (including Wilson), Goldsboro had been intent on demolishing abandoned, dilapidated housing. In 2005, the city appropriated $100,000 for demolitions, but the city planner estimated it would cost $1 million to demolish all the boarded-up houses. The shock of that number prompted the city to take a different tack. The city put $100,000 into a revolving fund that would option or buy historic properties and market them to new owners with historic preservation covenants in the deed. Seeing the success, the city added $50,000 to the revolving fund. Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. marketed the properties through Preservation North Carolina, which options and sells historic properties throughout the state and has had phenomenal success in places such as Edenton Mill Village, where old mill houses worth $26,000 in 1997 are now selling for 10 times that. Scores of essentially worthless properties and vacant lots have now been returned to the tax rolls, generating millions of dollars in taxes.

DGDC and PNC have preserved and sold dozens of houses. DGDC now "controls" (not necessarily owns but has the right to market with protective covenants) 28 houses, Thompson said, just from the city's $150,000 investment. DGDC, a nonprofit tax-exempt corporation, options or buys properties; the city takes no ownership role, although it does pay DGDC's four-person staff.

In addition to preserving historic properties, DGDC has worked with Self-Help Credit Union to build low- to moderate-income "infill" homes on the lots where houses had been demolished. These houses are built from historic designs that complement the existing older homes, creating a consistent neighborhood streetscape. These infill properties have added additional millions in property values on lots that had been essentially worthless.

In 2007-08, Goldsboro's program generated about $6 million in public investment and $10.4 million in private investment, Thompson said. This kind of success has brought statewide attention to Goldsboro, which has restored (with public and private money) the downtown Paramount Theater (which is older than Wilson's Edna Boykin Cultural Center) and the historic city hall. The restoration of City Hall with its rooftop gilded statues and the construction of the City Hall Annex cost Goldsboro about $11 million.

Goldsboro is far from being finished. The old city train station will be restored to its past glory and is to be used as a stop on a planned commuter rail line that will take riders to Raleigh. Center Street, where a railroad track once ran down the middle, is to be renovated to create a broad pedestrian path in the median and wider sidewalks on each side.

In December 2007, my wife and I toured Goldsboro with her father, who had grown up there in the 1920s and '30s, on DGDC's Christmas homes tour. The restored private homes gave me some insight into what a good historic preservation program can do. Wednesday's presentation explained the finances and administration of this effort.

The Wilson participants at Wednesday's presentation were impressed and enthusiastic. It seems obvious that this strategy is transportable, that it can work in other places, including Wilson. The key, as several Goldsboro speakers emphasized, is getting public officials behind it. As Mayor King warned, "Don't listen to the nay-sayers." He said he had been repeatedly told that the city should "just bulldoze" the historic City Hall, but city management and elected officials ignored the vocal minority. City Hall's restored grandeur and the annex's seamless connection to the old building proves the nay-sayers wrong.

Wilson has a similar stock of historic buildings and vacant lots that Goldsboro has. Wilson can do what Goldsboro has done, if public officials get behind it. Unfortunately, the solitary Wilson City Council member (one out of seven) who attended Wednesday's presentation does not bode well for Wilson's capability.