More than two decades after his mother died, Jay Steele unearthed a Tupperware full of his mother’s Kodak photo slides. Her photos revealed a world of mud-stomping, banjo-strumming, red-clay-wandering joy, a world he never knew about until he cracked the lid of her old box.
Words by Jay Steele | Photos by Amy Steele
I love estate sales. Waking up early, driving with the sunrise to a nondescript brick ranch on the outskirts of the city, waiting with strangers for a sweet older lady to unlock the door to someone’s basement. Making small talk with a slight middle-aged woman, knowing she might be after the handmade Japanese coffee mug with the blue glaze. And then, the door opens and it’s on. Never finding everything on the list but still unearthing the unimaginable. An armload of obscure gospel records or regional art zines. A Giacometti knockoff. Red Grooms’ “Ruckus Taxi.” Beverly Buchanan’s charcoal self-portrait. Buddy Emmons’ Scrabble board. Knowing the thrill of the discovery will be washed away by the instant feeling of regret once the credit card is processed.
On March 18, 1998, our mom, Amy, died. She was 48. I found her cold on the hardwood kitchen floor of our house, not far from the beloved butcher block she had found at some junk store or estate sale in the Piedmont region of North Carolina many years earlier. Her heart had missed a beat and then stopped. Forever. And with it the pulse of our family, our extended family, and our community. The axis that kept us all within orbit, even as things went completely sideways. The math major with an MBA who shelved her career to raise three boys and watch over a Polled Hereford farm while her husband traveled the world selling brick machinery.
Jay Steele’s mother, Amy Steele, dressed in a blue button-up shirt and hat, takes a few steps with folk artist Alex Stewart (at top left). Children play in the mud, while adults tailgate during the West Virginia music fest (at bottom left). A performer woos the crowd from the festival’s stage (at right).
The items in that same house in Statesville, North Carolina, would make for a fun estate sale. Vintage T-shirts, autographed baseballs, primitive antiques, yellowed cookbooks, handmade quilts, LPs, CDs, and Persian rugs. A Tupperware full of Kodak photo slides. I found it while I was there last summer for a few weeks. Tucked in the bottom shelf of a cabinet in my dad’s old office. Next to another metal box of slides and the small tote she was carrying the day she died.
I’d spent another trip a few years earlier organizing boxes of family photos, birth notices, newspaper clippings, Christmas cards, handwritten notes, and more. It was overwhelming, but these newly discovered photo slides were a different experience. Collectively, they were the Rosetta Stone to my mom’s young adult life. There were her photos of a mission trip to Brazil, pictures from rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, celebrating Tinker Day at Hollins College (now Hollins University), living in Colorado, water-skiing on Lake Norman, and attending the Morris Family Old-Time Music Festival in Ivydale, West Virginia, in 1972. Things I had heard about but didn’t really know about. I was actually seeing her in these situations and also her life at that time through her own eyes. I was simultaneously learning so much and realizing I knew so little about her. It’s the closest and perhaps the furthest I’ve felt to her since she died.
Homer Walker (left) and Sparky Rucker make music together as a rapt audience gathers at their feet.
Dave Morris, one of the festival’s producers, dons a brown cowboy hat.
I was a kid when it happened. I had barely even hit puberty. I knew her then in the sense that I knew she loved us all unconditionally. That she could sew a stage-worthy Robin Hood costume the night before Halloween. Cook for 50 people without breaking a sweat. Teach almost anyone to water-ski. Pull a Polled Hereford calf with a chain only a few days after a hysterectomy. Take a neighbor’s Christmas card photo. But we never got to talk about her starting an abortion fund at Hollins, working as a butcher in Colorado, or cheerleading at R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Or what it was like to lose her own father when she was only a few years older than I was when I lost her.
Two unidentified musicians warm up the crowd.
Bill Hicks, on the fiddle, and Tommy Thompson, playing the guitar, perform as folks dance on stage.
As someone who has attended hundreds of concerts and music festivals, those photos from Ivydale struck me in particular. My mom loved Aretha Franklin, and I remember her traveling to see the Queen of Soul in Charlotte, North Carolina. That said, other than seeing a regional production of “Big River” or watching my Uncle Parker perform with his band, the Soul Snatchers, at MerleFest, our family never really went to any live music events together. But there she is at a remote old-time music festival in the hills of West Virginia. Grinning ear-to-ear while she dances with an older stranger, the folk artist Alex Stewart. Now I am with her as she watches Sparky Rucker and Homer Walker, and what became the Red Clay Ramblers perform to a rapt audience. I can walk with her friends and my Aunt Kathy as they wade through the muck and laugh with her at the little kids throwing mud at each other.
I recently purchased a documentary from that 1972 festival in West Virginia. I’ve scoured over the 25 minutes of black-and-white footage looking for her. I think she’s there briefly around the 11-minute mark, standing side stage during a performance. There’s a glimmer in her eye as she soaks it all in. Every ounce of every moment. A few days after my mom died, the Statesville Record & Landmark ran a story with the headline, “She Did It All With a Smile.” I don’t think she would have liked that. She was never much for the spotlight. But it’s true. She’s smiling in almost every photo I found in that Tupperware box.
“I can walk with her friends and my Aunt Kathy as they wade through the muck and laugh with her at the little kids throwing mud at each other,” Jay Steele says of the memories his late mother’s photos evoke of the 1972 music festival.
This story was published in Issue No. 1 of The Bitter Southerner magazine.
Jay Steele is an artist manager at TT Management in Nashville, Tennessee. When he has spare time, Jay also runs a record label, General General, writes a newsletter called Generally Weekly, and contributes to Aquarium Drunkard.
Amy Steele (1949-1998), beloved mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, friend, neighbor, etc., took thousands of photos over the course of her life. These photographs are from the Morris Family Old-Time Music Festival in Ivydale, West Virginia, 1972.
Header photo: Lee Hammons plays his banjo for onlookers at the Morris Family Old-Time Music Festival in Ivydale, West Virginia, in 1972.
