Wichita Presbyterian Manor
JANUARY 2021
Longtime artist Atterbury surrounded by paintings Many years ago, Helen Atterbury “just took a notion” that she wanted to paint.
New Westwinds resident recalls making music, farm life, family
“My husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I said some paints,” she said. “He thought I was crazy.” After all, Helen was the business manager of the Big Eight Conference, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s college football conference. She was used to working with numbers, not images.
Gerald Allgood in 1960
Helen Atterbury’s assisted living apartment is decorated with several of her original paintings.
That year, she received paints as a Christmas gift from her husband, Earl Wayne. She took lessons from a neighbor, who taught her tole painting, a decorative painting technique with roots in folk art. For many years, Helen was a member of the Society of Decorative Painters, an international organization based in Wichita. The women soon branched out into more traditional oil painting techniques. Helen often took inspiration from images in art books and gravitated toward landscapes, animals, buildings and still lifes.
In his 88 years, Gerald Allgood has collected some interesting stories. The Wichita Presbyterian Manor independent living resident moved to his Westwinds apartment on Oct. 1 of last year. Gerald grew up in the small community of Bussey, Iowa, on his parents’ 160-acre farm. They entertained themselves by making music, and Gerald played banjo in a “farm band” alongside his sister (piano) and mother (fiddle and other instruments).
“At one point I said I’d paint anything that would hold still for me,” said Helen, who moved to Wichita Presbyterian Manor last July. Her work covers an incredible variety of subject matter, although she was never interested in portraits.
The Allgoods were officers in the Farm Bureau, which “got me interested in 4-H,” Gerald said. In the program, Gerald enjoyed working with registered Herefords.
Over more than four decades, Helen made hundreds of paintings. Though most are no longer in her possession, she has postcards of all of them.
He went on to major in agricultural education at Iowa State, which is
ARTIST– continued on page 2
ALLGOOD - continued on page 5
Wichita Presbyterian Manor | A PMMA COMMUNITY
1