Weeping Mary

"Sharecroppers", 1965 by O. Rufus Lovett’s father

Opal Rufus Lovett

by O. Rufus Lovett

It was spring in 1965 near the Pea River in Alabama. My father was driving along when he noticed a woman toting a fruit jar of well water to her husband who was plowing a mule in a nearby cornfield. As my dad pulled up to the corn rows, he began a smooth rap revealing his kind and honest persona that no doubt allowed him a brief but sincere encounter into the lives of his newly found photographic subjects. The woman was at first hesitant to be portrayed in their work clothes in the field with the mule and plow. He assured her that it would be a picture that would not be made fun of and they agreed to be photographed.

My father’s photographic experience from that one afternoon has created a path in a direction that I have chosen to follow. Perhaps seeing that image of my father’s “Sharecroppers” throughout my childhood and discovering its qualities and his genuine empathy for the couple, conceivably inspired me to make the intimate photographs I have made in Weeping Mary, Texas.

My father’s awareness of the beautiful light falling on the couple’s faces, and his capturing the translucency of the drinking water, gestures that reveal their strength, the composition and careful cropping of the animals so they would remain a secondary notion within the frame is stunning. My father’s unobtrusive, non-invasive presence as a white blond blue-eyed stranger is also remarkable considering the political/social era of racial tension andsegregation in Alabama. He had become a part of thatpicture. A self-portrait so to speak, reflecting his ownbackground. It revealed where he is from and who he is.He knew those people, and those animals, and the treesand the sky. His rapport created a sincere kinship thatallowed him to make this honest environmental portrait.

Opal Rufus Lovett in 1995 with his old 5X7 Split Frame Studio Camera at his home in Jacksonville, Alabama.

29 Years Later…

"Trey’s Ride", 1994

It was spring in 1994 in East Texas and my long-time writer friend Gary Borders said, “There’s a place called Weeping Mary.” What? “There’s a place called Weeping Mary.” Weeping Mary, where? “Down in Cherokee County and you ought to go check it out,” he said. That’s how the photographs of Weeping Mary began. The name is so beautiful, and I had been thinking of that name since the day he first spoke it.

Weeping Mary is a small community that I have heard dates back to post Civil War days, hidden in the Neches River bottom flat within the East Texas piney woods.

Folklore (I call front-porch-lore) has it that an African- American lady landowner named Mary was tricked out of selling her land to a wealthy white man. The white man had used a black man to make the purchase of the land for him without Mary’s knowing that the white man would become the property owner. This deceitful act upset Mary so much that she wept and wept and became known as Weeping Mary. Later the church and the community were named Weeping Mary. I’ve heard slightly different versions of the story, and I have read that perhaps the community was named for Mary Magdalene, who wept for Jesus or perhaps it is derived from a Catholic Church name, Our Lady of Sorrows. I am partial to the former legend about Mary who lost her land.

"Mrs. Martin’s Porch", 1994

O. Rufus Lovett

I began my introduction to Weeping Mary without my camera, to get acquainted and create a rapport and friendship with the adults and earn a sense of trust. I gradually began asking permission to make photographs of the children, at first to create picture pages for The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches. I continued to photograph as I attended family reunions, church events, holidays and visits experiencing everyday life in the community.

The children at Weeping Mary grow to graduate from schools, work for the highway department, work for the local forestry service or sawmills and stay in Weeping Mary raising children of their own. Their lives are intertwined with those of parents, grandparents, cousins and uncles and neighbors reflecting limited conditions enlightened by play and laughter and hope. At least for now the future is theirs to dream about and, perhaps, to fulfill. It is my interest in the human condition and visualization of the community that I wish to recognize the importance of the lives of these children and their influences.

"Cherry’s Wallet", 1994

O. Rufus Lovett

Interpreting Weeping Mary, it was my goal to make a photo essay about the people and their relationship to their environment – how they are married to this place which is theirs and appears to stand still but subtly moves with the rest of the world in the 21st Century. I have been asked if I was perhaps exploiting the people there. Anne Wilkes Tucker of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, answered it best in my book Weeping Mary when she raised a question at the end of her quote, “When a fresh subject, such as Weeping Mary, is discovered, and when, as with Lovett, the photographer feels a strong personal resonance with the subject, it is hard to walk away. How does one balance whatever harm the invasionof privacy might cause against the value of preserving something ofbeauty and human relevance?”

"Demitria’s Shoes", 1994

O. Rufus Lovett

I spent ten years photographing Weeping Mary with the early imagespublished in The Daily Sentinel and in 1998 in Texas Monthly and otherpublications including Lenswork and LIFE magazine. The work has beencollected in the permanent collections of the Amon Carter Museum inFort Worth; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Ransom HumanitiesResearch Center at UT Austin; and the Birmingham Museum of Fine Artin Alabama. It has been exhibited throughout the country in New York,Dallas, Austin, Houston, Durango, Colorado, Portland, Oregon andBirmingham, Alabama. University of Texas Press, with Foreword andQ&A by Anne Wilkes Tucker, published the book Weeping Mary in 2006.

“When a fresh subject, such as Weeping Mary, is discovered, and when, as with Lovett, the photographer feels a strong personal resonance with the subject, it is hard to walk away. How does one balance whatever harm the invasion of privacy might cause against the value of preserving something of beauty and human relevance?”